


haven't you heard that I'm the new cancer?

by colorblindbody



Category: Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: M/M, Mentions of Underage Abuse, Mentions of suicide attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-04
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-09-28 07:35:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10079702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colorblindbody/pseuds/colorblindbody
Summary: Brendon has been hiding a dark secret for years, but one drunken night on the bus and suddenly he's coming clean. At least he can trust his friends.Except, maybe he can't.





	1. Chapter 1

He shouldn’t have slipped up.

He shouldn’t have gotten so drunk knowing he’d had one of the now-rare nightmares the night before, sending him into a spiral of anxiety for the rest of the day. He should have heard the pulsing of his erratic heartbeat in his own ears, unable to calm itself even once the band had been offstage for half an hour, and known he wasn’t in the right head space to party. He should have called it a night and retired to his bunk with the curtains drawn tight around himself and whatever shadows of his past that would pester him for hours before he finally drifted off to the background noises of his friends laughing and pouring alcohol into plastic cups.

But when Andy and Joe went off to some bar and Pete and Patrick declined to go with them, Spencer invited them to “wind down” back at Panic’s tour bus. And when Ryan produced a bottle of something he deemed “the good stuff” and handed Brendon an empty solo cup, Brendon barely hesitated before allowing dark liquor to be poured inside. 

He shouldn’t have. But he didn’t want to be alone.

And once he started drinking and the laughter and joking and general camaraderie between the five young men packed around him like sardines in a can seeped through his skin like the warmth of a hearth fire he found himself completely relaxing into the feeling. Once, twice, three times, he lost count, he emptied the cup in his hand and held it out toward Ryan, who poured each refill with a smirk. The shadows of panic that had followed him around since opening his eyes that morning finally ebbed away, and he heard himself laugh at something stupid Jon said and he believed that he was fine, super fine, super duper stupendously fine.

He didn’t know how they got onto the topic of hookups and flings but it was a little hard to focus with the liquor sloshing around in his brain. More than likely it was something Jon had implied about one of Spencer’s various sexual escapades, or vice versa – the two were always ragging on one another or cracking dirty jokes that Brendon never found funny but always laughed at.

He also didn’t know why this led to the discussion of who liked girls (Jon, Spencer) and who liked boys (Patrick) and who liked both (Ryan, Pete) or why, when he was the only one who hadn’t volunteered this information or a story about some crazy sexual encounter of his own, Ryan suddenly turned to him and announced, “Yeah, Brendon’s bi too. Right Bren?”

Before he could reply, Spencer chuckled. “We couldn’t have all guessed that from the fact that Brendon will flirt with anyone who has a pulse,” he teased. Brendon grinned back, because he was supposed to (right?). _It’s fine_ , the alcohol whispered back. He gulped down the rest of the crap in his cup (maybe Ryan was wrong, because if you asked Brendon, it wasn’t that “good”).

“Y’know Bren, I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen you with a lady _or_ a man the whole time we’ve been in this band,” Jon drawled, waving his cup at Brendon. “Kinda weird, since you could have anybody you wanted, cuz we all know you’re the prettiest y’know, but it’s okay…” He laughed, and almost fell off the beanbag he was perched on.

“Yeah Brendon, why don’t you have a lady or a man?” Ryan asked, nudging Brendon’s shoulder.

Brendon was still giggling at a very drunk Jon, too amused to notice that his guard had dropped completely and the alcohol had molded a smooth layer of _nothing matters_ around his brain. He met his friend’s gaze with a squint. “You know why, silly,” he hiccuped. “Cuz of… Matt. Duh.” He gave Ryan’s arm a light punch, nearly missing as the bus’s “living room” tilted around him.

Ryan tilted his head to the side. “What about Matt, Bren?”

“Who’s Matt?” Spencer looked at them inquisitively. Brendon blinked. Something was off here, but…

“Brendon’s best friend in tenth grade,” Ryan answered, eyes still boring into Brendon’s face. “His other best friend, anyway.” He cracked a grin that didn’t quite match the glint in his pupils. “They just stopped talking one day. Bren refused to sit at the same lunch table, he moved to different desks in all our classrooms. They had some big fight and never spoke again.”

“Wasn’t a fight.” Brendon heard the words before he realized they had come out of his own mouth. Why was he correcting Ryan? Didn’t Ryan already know he was wrong? Wait. The alcoholic buzz in his ears quieted just long enough for him to realize that Ryan didn’t know, and neither did anyone else sitting in this room.

“What happened, Bren?” He heard Pete ask. His voice seemed far away but still sent a flush of warmth through Brendon’s body – which was probably the reason he made the mistake of offering a reply.

“He took me to a party. Everyone was there. We drank and we danced.” _Stop. Stop talking. Stop._ “I got too drunk. Took me upstairs… ‘n the door was locked. He made me…”

The room was dead silent. Brendon’s eyes were squeezed shut but he could feel the heat of everyone’s eyes staring into his skull.

“He made me.” He could feel his hands crushing the plastic cup between them.

_I was a virgin._

Wait. Did he say that last part out loud?

And then he was up, the pounding in his skull louder than a freight train as he stumbled across the small quarters, nearly tripping over Jon’s sprawled form and pushing Patrick’s arm aside as he reached out to help. The door to the tiny bathroom slammed behind him and they all heard the click of a lock just before the gruesome sounds of Brendon’s stomach contents being emptied into the toilet. Tense silence stretched between them as the retching continued, continued, continued, and then died down. Water ran and they heard a toothbrush on teeth, masking the quiet hiccups that they all knew accompanied frantic sobs.

Spencer felt tendrils of guilt clench around his gut, mentally berating himself for helping pull from Brendon’s lips a story he had obviously gone to great lengths to never tell. He glanced at Ryan to see if his sentiments were shared, but the other man’s face was a blank slate.

The water shut off at last and the door creaked open. Brendon emerged with wet, red-rimmed eyes, his solo cup now filled to the brim with water from the tap. Refusing to meet the gaze of any other person in the room, he stumbled to his bunk and slipped inside, drawing the curtains tightly around him as if to shield his body from what had just taken place.

Several moments passed before he heard the others exchange whispers, and the bus door opened to release Pete and Patrick from what had become Brendon’s own living nightmare. He drew his knees up to his chest, lapping water from the cup balanced carefully next to his face. _Stupid, stupid, stupid, so stupid._ The bunks above and around him creaked as the others settled in for the night. Wondering how he was ever going to face them the next morning, or any of the mornings that came after, Brendon drifted into fitful slumber, his heart already racing from the nightmares that were to come.


	2. Chapter 2

The lights were still shining brightly over the field as Brendon sat on the sidelines, shaking sweat from his bangs and switching from soccer cleats to sandals.

“Bren!” He looked up as Matt jogged over from where he’d been conversing with some of the other guys on the team. “Dude, I know I already said it, but damn that was a sweet score at the end there!”

Brendon grinned, cheeks flushing ever so slightly. “Yeah? I still feel like I just missed being trampled by number 10.”

Matt laughed. “Yeah, he’s a big guy, huh? Hey listen, Kev’s parents are out of town tonight. There’s gonna be a party, celebrate the big win. So obviously, you have to go, being the MVP of the evening and all.” He waggled his eyebrows devilishly.

“Okay. I’ve gotta go home and change first though.”

“Cool. Pick you up at ten.”

-

Almost all the lights were off and the bass was thrumming through Brendon’s ears as Matt ground their hips together from behind. Brendon’s heart beat wildly and his body, buzzing from the alcohol he’d been offered as soon as he walked through the door, responded excitedly to the other boy’s touch. He’d come out to Matt just two weeks ago, and he could have sworn his friend’s behavior toward him had become more flirtatious since then. Now he knew he hadn’t just been imagining things.

Drink after drink kept appearing in his hand and Brendon kept downing them, losing himself completely in the thrill of the evening. Matt’s hands on his waist guided him around the makeshift dance floor as his movements become sloppy and uncoordinated. He didn’t know how much time had passed before he finally realized that the room was spinning dangerously around him and he very suddenly felt that he might topple over, or lose the contents of his stomach.

“Matt,” he mumbled, laughing despite his condition when he felt Matt nudge the back of Brendon’s neck with his nose from behind. “Matt!”

“Hmm?” He barely heard the other boy over the music.

“Don’t… feel so great… Can we maybe sit… or…?”

Matt slipped his hand into Brendon’s, other arm snaking around his friend’s waist. He led Brendon to the edge of the living room and up the stairs. The noise of the party was muffled when they reached the top, then reduced to a dull thumping as Matt guided Brendon inside of the nearest bedroom and shut the door behind them.

Brendon let go of Matt’s hand and leaned on the side of the bed. He took a few deep breaths and the nausea that had been creeping up his throat subsided a bit.

His concentration was broken by the abrupt pressing of Matt’s lips against his. Startled, he opened his eyes briefly before returning the kiss. Matt moaned, mouth parting a bit. His fingers curled through a lock of Brendon’s hair. Brendon could feel the other boy’s tongue against his lips and he granted it access into his mouth, heart pounding. His sexual experiences so far had consisted of closed-mouth kisses with the two girls he’d dated briefly during the first couple of years of high school. It occurred to him that he had no idea what Matt wanted from him at this moment, how far the other boy was expecting to go.

He had suspicions, however, when Matt began to slide his hands up the front of Brendon’s shirt, then back down toward the waistband of his jeans. He began to panic, scooting back onto the bed and pulling away from the kiss. “M-Matt, hang on.”

Matt grinned drunkenly, perching on the edge of the bed. “Ah, don’t be a tease, B,” he slurred, crawling toward the other boy. Brendon tried to relax into the kiss that followed, but his surroundings were spinning once more and his stomach was flipping over itself. He tried to pull away but Matt grabbed him by the waist and flung him onto his backside. Brendon grunted, fumbling for a grip on the bedspread as he was flipped onto his stomach. He felt Matt planting kisses on the back of his neck, sucking at his skin, but suddenly it didn’t feel as good as it had before. He began to struggle, a panicked whine escaping his lips. His panic intensified when he felt Matt’s hands slip underneath him and unbutton his jeans.

“Matt…” He cringed at the sound of Matt’s belt buckle being undone. “I don’t want to do this,” he whimpered. Matt didn’t reply as he slid Brendon’s jeans down. His fingers were cold against Brendon’s bare skin, and the smaller boy shuddered. “Matt, please stop,” he cried.

Matt didn’t stop.

Brendon buried his face in the bedspread, fingers gripping handfuls of the fabric. The screams and sobs of pain that ripped from his throat with Matt’s every thrust were swallowed by the thickness of the mattress and the din of the raging party below. He heard himself begging, through the drunken buzzing in his brain and the sharp slapping of skin hitting skin, for someone, anyone, to help him, save him, make it stop. He hurt. This hurt. This was _sex?_ This was society’s idol, the media’s most successful marketing tool, cinema’s favorite plot device? No. This wasn’t right. This was pure hell.

Matt’s hands were sliding under his shirt again, pushing the hem up to expose a larger area of bare flesh. His fingers were _everywhere,_ crawling over Brendon like spiders as sinfully soft lips sucked at his skin, contaminating every available inch of his body. Bile rose in his throat as Matt’s thrusts became quicker, more forceful. Sweat dripped from Brendon’s forehead and he prayed for it to all just be over.

He felt the burst inside of him as Matt finished. He whimpered into the bed and curled his fists even tighter. Matt pulled out and Brendon bit back a gasp at the change in pressure. He heard Matt pulling up his jeans, the clink of his belt being fastened, but Brendon was frozen in place, as if his body had melted into the bed at some point during the ordeal.

Brendon flinched at the feel of Matt’s lips against the top of his head. “Lemme know when you feel better, B,” he slurred into Brendon’s ear. His footsteps receded and the bedroom door swung open and shut. Brendon released a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, and realized he was shaking from head to toe. Slowly, he reached up and tugged at the hem of his jeans, managing to pull them back into place before sliding off the bed. His head spun as he straightened, the pain thrumming through the rest of his body hardly registering due to the alcohol sloshing through his veins. The only thing on his mind was getting out, getting away, putting as much distance as possible between himself and his former best friend and never coming back.

He remembered stumbling down the stairs, out the front door, the fresh October air that nipped at his flushed cheeks.

He remembered bending over and throwing up on the side of the road, over and over until it felt like even his stomach had been expelled.

He didn’t remember walking home, but he knew it had to have happened due to the thick blisters worn into his feet by the following morning.

He remembered the shower, scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing and throwing up and scrubbing and crying and scrubbing and trying to breathe and scrubbing and _never getting clean_.

. . . . .

Brendon woke to the stiff feeling of dried tears on his face and his hand still clutching an empty solo cup. The feeling of being held down, suffocated, still gripped him, a painful reminder of the nightmare that was apparently never going to leave him. He drew in a shuddering breath, wincing at the dull ache in his skull and hints of nausea in his stomach. He pulled his phone from under his pillow to check the time. It was only half past seven in the morning, and from the lack of movement around him and the sound of Jon’s soft snores he concluded that he was the first to wake up. He slipped from the bunk and, realizing he was still wearing his clothes from the night before, grabbed his wallet and quietly slipped out, closing the bus door behind him with a soft click. A walk, some fresh air, maybe some coffee or something, that was what he needed.

Besides, of course, his friends somehow forgetting everything he had said the previous night before he got back to the bus.


	3. Chapter 3

Brendon decided long before his feet led him back to Panic’s tour bus that the best course of action would be to take no action; that is, to act as if nothing at all had happened. After all, if he refused to acknowledge the conversation that had taken place the night prior, everyone else would be loath to bring it up – right?

He sat inside the diner for hours, pushing a coffee stirrer in circles through his third mug of the stuff and staring blankly at remains of the greasy hangover food he had half-heartedly picked through. Around 10 his phone had begun to buzz, the screen lighting up with each new message.

_Spencer: hey where are you? are you ok?_

_Spencer: bren you know we’re supposed to start driving at noon right?_

_Jon: hey b, spence is really freaking out so maybe reply or smth haha…………_

_Pete: Hey, is everything okay? Spencer called and asked if you had come to our bus._

_Spencer: please reply or zack is gonna send out a search party or something idk_

_Ryan: come back to the bus Bren_

_Pete: I know you probably weren’t planning on saying what you did last night, but if you ever need someone to talk to, I’m always here. Hope that isn’t too weird to say. Hope you’re doing all right._

Brendon sighed, his stomach twisting into a new knot with each text that appeared. He knew it wasn’t nice, wasn’t fair, to hide from his friends like this when all they wanted to do was help him. But that was the problem: he didn’t want them to want to help him. It had been years, for chrissakes, he just needed to suck it up, stop feeling sorry for himself, and forget the whole thing ever happened.

-

He could already hear raised voices through the closed door of the bus and he sighed before yanking it open.

“—I don’t care how late we are at this point, we have to—” Spencer stopped mid-shout, hand slowly lowering from where it had been pointing emphatically in Zack’s direction. He stared at Brendon, who was standing in the doorway calmly, holding a large paper to-go bag in one hand and a takeaway coffee cup in the other. Jon and Ryan turned their gazes to the brunette as well from where they sat at the booth-style kitchenette table. An eerie silence lingered as the three tried to read Brendon’s blank expression.

“Okay,” Zack said finally, after glancing back and forth between the four several times. He checked his watch and then disappeared, and just moments later they heard the engine crank and the bus came to life under their feet.

Brendon shut the door behind him and took a sip from his coffee cup. The movement seemed to pull Spencer from the stupor he had fallen into. “What the hell, Brendon?” he muttered, obviously trying his hardest not to start screaming his head off (something, Brendon tried not to think bitterly, he would not have held himself back from just twenty-four hours prior). “Are you trying to scare the shit out of everyone? It’s…” He glanced down at his phone. “It’s noon. It’s noon on the dot.”

Brendon shrugged. “So I’m not late.” He tossed the takeout bag, which was filled with chicken and sausage biscuits from the diner, onto the table between Ryan and Jon. “I brought food.”

He felt Spencer’s gaping stare follow him as he strolled carefully back through the now-moving bus to the couch where he’d left his guitar. As he began to quietly pluck a tune from the strings he heard rustling and chewing sounds from the kitchenette, accompanied by low murmurs and concerned tones. He sighed, staring out the tinted window, and prayed for normalcy to return.

-

Brendon’s “pretend to be fine and ignore all efforts toward further discussion” method worked surprisingly well once his friends had recovered from the initial shock of learning his secret. He kept telling himself that as long as he kept this up, everything would simply return to the way it had been before. Spencer would stop taking three times as long to speak while he turned every word over in his head to make sure nothing he said would be a trigger, Jon would be able to slug Brendon in the shoulder without flushing and blurting out an apology, and dirty jokes would once more be tossed around between them like they weren’t grenades being thrown directly at Brendon’s face. And Ryan…

Well, Brendon wasn’t exactly sure about Ryan, because as far as he could tell, Ryan’s behavior hadn’t changed all that much. Ryan had always been quiet, calculating, a smooth operator, unlikely to make a move he hadn’t yet thought his way through – unless, of course, he was on the drugs. But that was a different story.

No, Ryan hadn’t changed, other than the fact that Brendon could have sworn his gaze lingered longer now, like he was trying to figure something out on the inside of Brendon’s brain, and whatever that was would come spooling out if his eyes bored long enough into the other man’s skull.

But Brendon was probably just imagining things.

As for Pete and Patrick, Brendon had managed to avoid much contact with those two thus far – especially Pete. Every time he happened to be in the same vicinity as Pete, felt those beautiful dark eyes staring into him, he would blush furiously and turn away, usually finding some excuse to leave the room.

Brendon wasn’t quite sure at what point he had gone from admiring Pete Wentz to developing a full-blown schoolgirl crush on him, but now that Pete knew just how damaged Brendon was he couldn’t even stand to let the other man look at him. He felt like his skin was constantly crawling with the unspoken judgement of other people, and even though he knew Pete was too smart, too kind, too understanding to ever place the blame on Brendon for what had happened to him or in any way see him as less of a person than he had before, Brendon couldn’t help it. All those feelings of being dirty and used that he had managed to push down so long ago had come flooding back as soon as his friend’s faces became painted with the realization of what Brendon had been through. Now every interaction he had with the people closest to him just reminded him of how broken he was, how damaged he would always be.

His feelings for Pete didn’t matter, he had decided. They never would. Regardless of whether hell ever froze over and Pete actually returned Brendon’s quiet affections, Brendon would never be the man that Pete deserved to be with.

A week passed, and with it several performances. The other members of Panic slowly began to stop treating Brendon like he was made of glass, in part due to the near-reckless confidence Brendon practically exploded with every time he took the stage. The more he allowed the roar of the crowd to soak through his skin the more alive he felt, grinning wildly at his bandmates from the corners of his eyes as he spat words into the microphone with every ounce of feeling he had, hands beckoning for the audience to scream them back at him. It was these moments that seemed to convince the others he was okay, and sometimes he was almost able to believe that himself.

It was the second to last show of the tour, the night before they were set to go back home for one more rally (fans really went wild when you made the hometown concerts even more special than they already were). Brendon’s fingers curled tight around the mic in his hand as he practically screamed the last lines of Mad as Rabbits, his pitch climbing higher, higher, higher, until he found himself hitting a note he had never once been able to reach onstage. The crowd’s roar filled the auditorium, drowning out the final notes of the song. Brendon panted, staring out at the vast sea of faces.

“Thank you, we’re Panic at the Disco,” he heard himself tell them, one hand raised in a motionless wave. His body buzzed with adrenaline as they all staggered off of the stage, all four dripping with sweat.

He nearly collided with another set of limbs just barely offstage. Muttering a quick apology, he looked up, expecting to see some tech he didn’t know, and instead came face-to-face with a smiling Pete Wentz.

Before Brendon could say anything, Pete’s smile morphed into a real, teeth-are-showing grin and he grabbed Brendon by the shoulder, his hand giving a light, friendly squeeze. “Brendon, that was incredible. Really, wow. I should watch you guys’ set more often.”

Brendon blushed. “Yeah um, definitely think we’ve gotten better this tour,” he mumbled nervously. His skin tingled beneath Pete’s hand, but not in the bad way. He tried to push away the fluttering feeling inside of him, chastising himself. _Act normal before he catches on, or worse – remembers how fucked up you are._

“I’ll say,” Pete replied. Andy walked by and socked the bassist in the arm.

“C’mon man, you still gotta tune that bass,” the drummer called back at them.

“And fix your eyeliner,” Joe teased from somewhere behind. Pete rolled his eyes, still grinning broadly, and dropped his hand from Brendon’s shoulder.

“See you after. And seriously, that note you did at the end there? Fucking fantastic.”

Brendon watched him walk away, breath catching in his throat. He was unable to stop the warmth that spread across his cheeks, then over his entire body, and he realized his own lips were still twisted into a goofy smile. He sighed deeply, trying to pull himself together mentally before strolling off to find the rest of his band.

If he had glanced over his shoulder he would have seen Ryan standing quietly in the corner, watching his every move.


	4. Chapter 4

Panic’s tour bus was deserted when Brendon crept inside to retrieve the overnight bag he had forgotten in the back room. They were being put up in a hotel that night because wouldn’t you know it, fifteen minutes outside of Sacramento Zack had noticed some big problem with the engine and declared to everyone on board that they would most definitely not make it back to LA if he didn’t get it serviced before they begun the last leg of their journey.

Looping the bag’s strap over his shoulder, Brendon turned to leave and jumped when he almost walked right into Ryan Ross. He took a step back, laughing nervously.

“Fuck, Ryan, give a guy some warning.” His hands twisted around the strap of the bag. “I just, uh, left this here. Wanted to get it before Zack drove off, so…” He cleared his throat, glancing past Ryan down the hallway, which Ryan’s lanky form was somehow completely blocking access to.

“He’s still inside. You have time.” Ryan’s voice was as flat as a dime. Brendon had to stop a chill from crawling up his spine at the unnatural sound.

“O-Okay. Um… are you okay, Ry?”

Ryan gazed back at him without responding. Brendon felt his stomach twist into a knot when he realized that Ryan’s pupils were stretched to the edge of his irises, gleaming with an emptiness that Brendon knew all too well.

“What are you on, Ryan?” he asked softly. The other man still offered no reply.

“Well,” Brendon said finally, squirming uncomfortably beneath the weight of Ryan’s blank stare, “we should probably get back. Long drive tomorrow, and everything. Zack will want the bus soon, anyway… so…”

“I was waiting for you.”

Brendon blinked. “To… leave?”

“I was going to wait. You were supposed to pick me.” Ryan took a step forward. “I did everything I was supposed to. I was always here. I waited for you.”

Brendon backed up anxiously as Ryan advanced, until his back was flattened against the bus wall. “W-What?” He couldn’t hold back the tremor that crept into his voice. His hands shook, and the overnight bag slipped down his arm and fell to the floor as Ryan drew closer, close enough for Brendon to feel the other man’s boozy breath on his face. His brain screamed at him to push past Ryan and run but he couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t tear his eyes away from Ryan’s black orbs as they swallowed him whole.

“You weren’t supposed to pick Pete,” Ryan said slowly, practically spitting the other man’s name from his lips, the first sign of emotion he had shown since the beginning of the encounter.

“There’s nothing going on between me and Pete,” Brendon whispered.

“That’s _bullshit!_ ”

Brendon yelped when Ryan’s fist smashed against the wall behind him, just missing the side of Brendon’s face. Tears crawled to the edges of Brendon’s eyelids and he fought to keep them from spilling over.

“I see the way you _look_ at him. I’m not an idiot, _Brendon_ …”

Ryan’s body pressed against Brendon’s, pinning him in place. Brendon had to swallow back bile at the feel of something hard poking into his thigh. Panic gripped him like a vise. Ryan was stronger than his petite form suggested and Brendon knew he was completely at the mercy of the drugs swimming in Ryan’s veins.

“R-Ryan. Please. Let’s go somewhere and talk about this, we can talk, let’s just talk about this, please…”

Ryan squinted back at him, and a slow smirk spread across his boyish face. “Talk?” he echoed.

Brendon cringed as Ryan’s lips mashed against his, struggling to squirm away from the contact. A sharp whine of pain rose from Brendon’s throat when he felt his bottom lip catch between teeth, tasting blood on his tongue.

“Ryan please,” he cried when Ryan came up for air. “Don’t do this to me, please…”

Ryan ignored his pleas and grabbed him by the shoulders, moving aside as he flung Brendon down so that the other man would fall face-first into the floor. Brendon caught himself on his elbows and knees, unable to hold back a frightened sob. He struggled to stand but Ryan planted one foot on the small of his back, kicking him back onto his stomach.

“ _I waited_ ,” Ryan hissed.

Brendon squeezed his eyes shut, fighting for breath beneath the weight of Ryan’s body. He felt himself being exposed as his pants were yanked down to his ankles. He gasped when Ryan shoved three fingers inside of him with no warning, clawing at the floor in desperation. Ryan twined his free hand through Brendon’s hair and shoved his face into the carpet. The fingers slid out as quickly as they had been forced in, and Brendon braced himself for what he knew would follow.

He groaned at the pain of Ryan’s first thrust, tears flowing freely down his face. It was worse than he remembered, worse even than the exaggerated horrors of his nightmares. Without the haze of a dream or distraction of alcohol it seemed to go on forever, his stomach twisting with every disgusting grunt of exertion that rose from Ryan’s throat. He heard his own uncontrollable sobs echoing off the sides of the empty bus, unable to draw enough breath or courage to scream for help. All he could do was lie there and take it and pray for it to end, just like when he was fifteen.

A revolting moan of pleasure escaped Ryan as he came. Brendon cringed, feeling the stinging burst of wetness inside of him. Ryan stayed put for several long moments, his heavy breaths tickling the back of Brendon’s ears and neck. Then he pulled out, grabbing a handful of Brendon’s ass and squeezing roughly. He chuckled when Brendon flinched and whimpered in response.

“You should have picked me,” he whispered hoarsely. Brendon waited, trembling, for further contact or perhaps a rough blow from the unpredictable, drugged-up Ryan, but instead heard receding footsteps and the slamming of the bus door. He dared to look up and glance around, confirming he was now alone, before he pulled his knees up to his chest, wincing at the pain that shot through him. He curled himself into a tight, protective ball and tried to focus solely on each inhale and exhale. He couldn’t stem the flow of tears that still dripped from his eyes, however, or the relentless shaking that consumed his entire body.

He was so stupid. So, so stupid.

_How could I let this happen to me again?_

With a start, he realized that at any moment Zack might climb onboard and find him lying in the floor, pants around his ankles and legs covered in Ryan’s…

He fought the urge to vomit and struggled to his feet, quickly tugging his clothing back into place. Wiping his sweat-covered brow with one shaking hand, he snatched his bag from the floor where it had fallen and crept toward the front of the van, nervous eyes sweeping to make sure Ryan wasn’t crouched in the shadows, waiting to pounce as soon as Brendon thought he was free to leave.

With the door barely cracked open he peered out, ensuring no one was watching when he slipped outside. As he hurried across the street to the hotel, he prayed he would be fortunate enough to avoid the glare of curious eyes and camera phones until he made it back to his room, where he could fall apart in private.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi readers, so a few quick things - first, this a suuuper long chapter oops lol, the way I split it up timeline-wise in my mind it made perfect sense to make the cuts where I made them, but in terms of length this chapter is awkwardly much longer than the ones before it. the next one might be as well, I'm not sure yet, we'll see. I have a loooong week ahead of me academics-wise, though I also just got done with a long week academics-wise which is why it took me so long to finish this monster of a chapter, so... we'll see.
> 
> second, I'm a big dummy and said in the last chapter that the bus had issues in Portland which is where everyone was supposed to assume Panic's 2nd-to-last show was happening, except I was a big dummy and didn't check the map on that, so if anyone was wondering how they were going to be making that 14-hour drive in less than 14 hours... yeah, my bad. I went back and changed it to Sacramento, so now they're only driving 5-6 hours. yay.
> 
> and finally, thanks so much to everyone who has been reading and leaving kudos and all of those lovely things! feel free to leave a comment as well if you have anything to say, idk haha. I'm kind of awk and haven't made any author's notes before this one for that very reason, but I'll appreciate you and say hi back anyway! :)

The sun was just barely peeking around the edges of the thick curtain lining the hotel room window when Brendon began to stir. As his eyelids cracked open, he became aware of a warm presence next to him. He slowly turned to look over his shoulder and immediately had to fight the urge to leap out of the bed. Ryan was lying on his back, sound asleep, still dressed in the clothes he had been wearing the night before.

Brendon’s heart pounded. Licking his dry lips, he slowly slid one leg out from beneath the covers, then the other, then the rest of his body, easing his weight off the mattress with as little extraneous movement as possible. Ryan slept on as Brendon, now wide awake and shaking all over, lifted his overnight bag from the floor and tiptoed into the bathroom.

He checked the locked door twice before slumping forward against the sink, forehead pressed against the cool glass mirror. Shit. Of course, of course, he and Ryan had been given the same hotel room. He hadn’t even thought to check with Zack to see how the four bandmates had been paired up for sleeping arrangements, but in all fairness, he also hadn’t expected to end up with a very good reason as to why one arrangement in particular might especially alarm him.

Still, when he had stumbled into the room the previous evening and seen _two_ double beds, he should have probably thought to wonder whether he would be alone for the rest of the night before he spent the next couple of hours hunched beneath the shower’s spray. It hadn’t even mattered in the end – just like before, he couldn’t scrub away the feeling of Ryan on top of him, all over him, _inside_ of him, no matter how hard he tried.

His hands gripped the countertop. What the fuck was he supposed to do now? How was he supposed to get on the bus, ride to LA, and get onstage with Ryan fucking Ross as if the other man hadn’t just ripped away pieces of him that he would never be able to get back?

A drop of water fell onto Brendon’s clenched knuckle and he blinked, realizing he had begun to cry again. He sniffled and wiped his face on the back of his arm. He pulled his phone from the outside pocket of his bag and powered it up. It was still just before eight in the morning. He plugged in the charger and turned the shower on.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, just letting the steaming water fall over his skin. He stopped crying and shaking after a while. His listless gaze meandered over the marble shower walls, picking out shapes and patterns like he used to do as a kid.

He was shaken from his stupor by the sound of a nearby door slamming, and he glanced nervously toward the bathroom entrance even though he knew he had triple-checked the lock.

“Ross, get the fuck out of bed for chrissakes!” Some of the tension left Brendon’s shoulders at the sound of Spencer grumbling loudly from the main room. “Every fucking morning. Come on, get up!”

The doorknob rattled and Spencer cursed, pounding his fist heavily against the bathroom door. “Jesus Bren, hurry up, would you? Zack says we have to leave in half an hour, which _I_ already knew because we were _all_ informed last night of this, I’m pretty sure!” He waited for a couple of seconds, presumably for Brendon to give a reply. Brendon dug his fingernails into his palms.

“Y-Yeah,” he called back, hopefully loud enough to be heard over the shower’s flow. “Sorry, I know. I’m almost done.”

Spencer somehow sighed loudly enough to be heard through the door and stream of warm water rushing around Brendon’s ears. “Okay. Okay, fine. Ryan can shower in our room. Just hurry up, okay Brendon? You know Zack’s not going to sleep for the first time in probably two days until he knows we’re all on the bus.”

“Yeah,” Brendon said again, still not moving to get up from the shower floor. He heard faint movements from the bedroom, more low grumbling noises from Spencer, and a couple of sleepy laughs from Ryan that made his stomach churn. Then the door slammed again, and they were gone. He reluctantly reached behind him and turned the water off.

-

Brendon barely glanced at his bandmates as he boarded the bus twenty minutes later. He dropped his bag and folded himself into his bunk. With the curtain drawn tight he listened to Spencer’s low, concerned murmurs and pictured Jon shrugging back. He pressed his face against the cool pillow. He felt like he hadn’t slept in a century. He felt like he would never feel safe enough to sleep again.

“Bren?” He heard Spencer’s soft voice outside of the curtain.

“Yeah Spence,” he murmured back. The bus had begun to move beneath them, and Brendon saw the shadow of Spencer’s arm through the curtain as he grabbed onto the bunk for balance.

Spencer hesitated. “Are… are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

Another long pause. “Okay. Just… when I ran into you last night you were mumbling something about taking a shower so I just thought it was kind of weird that you were taking one when I came in this morning…”

_Shit._ Brendon had no recollection of seeing Spencer after leaving the bus the night before. He bit down hard on his bottom lip. Had he spoken to anyone else? Had he said something, dropped any hint of a clue as to what had happened to put him in such a disheveled, frantic state?

“Yeah, uh… yeah, I just wasn’t feeling well. I went kind of hard last night, you know, onstage, and I just… didn’t feel well. I didn’t sleep well, I kind of just… my head kind of hurts, you know, my stomach. I thought maybe another hot shower would help, you know, I just… yeah. I’m fine. I just don’t… feel great.”

_Wow, way to go Brendon, definitely doesn’t sound like anything in the slightest is wrong with you right now…_

“Okay.” Sure enough, Spencer didn’t sound too convinced. “You’re gonna be all right for tonight though, yeah?”

“Yeah, yeah, totally,” Brendon said quickly. “I’ll be fine. You know me, I can always go onstage. I’m just gonna rest for a bit.”

“Okay,” Spencer said again. “Let me know if you need anything, I guess. I’ll tell Jon and Ry to keep it down.”

Brendon sighed and hugged his knees to his chest. Hopefully Spencer would just assume he had a touch of food poisoning or was worn out from their long tour and wouldn’t get on his case too much more about it.

At least, he reasoned, he should be able to safely sleep on the bus with the others around. After all, there was no way the others would knowingly let Ryan hurt him… right?

_You never imagined Ryan would hurt you either before yesterday,_ a nagging voice inside him whispered back. Brendon shrugged the thought away before he could be hit with the urge to start upchucking again. Still curled up in a tight ball, he forced his mind clear of thoughts and drifted into an uneasy sleep.

-

Brendon had been dressed in his stage attire and ready to perform for half an hour. He had warmed up in one of the tiny one-person bathrooms until he was able to banish the uneasy tremor that kept sneaking into his voice. Though he had managed to avoid any contact with Ryan all day, he was now beginning to wonder if that had been a mistake. He had no idea how much Ryan remembered of the night before. Factoring in the drugs in no way excused what Ryan had done to him, but it did beg the question: how much of Ryan’s behavior had been a conscious choice on his part? Regardless, it would have been nice to know whether Ryan was going to act differently toward him in public now, and be able to prepare himself to act accordingly.

“Hey, Bren.” Brendon jumped at the feel of a hand on his arm and turned quickly, prepared to jerk away.

He relaxed when he saw Pete standing behind him. “Hey,” he mumbled, flushing with self-disgust at the traces of pity he saw lurking in Pete’s eyes.

Pete hesitated, and slowly withdrew his hand. The harsh whispers of self-loathing in Brendon’s mind grew louder. “Spencer said you weren’t feeling well?”

_Christ, Spencer._ “No, I’m fine,” he lied. “I guess I was just really tired, or had a little food poisoning, or something. Bit of a headache, stomachache, I dunno. I’m fine now. Really.” He tried to spread a convincing smile across his face, but fell a bit short.

Pete didn’t look quite convinced, but smiled back. Brendon flushed again, this time with the warmth of the instinctive comfort he couldn’t help feeling when he was around Pete Wentz – when he wasn’t too distracted by nervousness and self-consciousness. “That’s good,” Pete said. “I was worried you wouldn’t feel up to coming to the party tonight. Which would suck, because obviously, it’s going to be one of the best nights we have all tour.”

He winked, and Brendon’s insides gave an annoying flutter before sinking into the pit of his stomach. He had forgotten about the end-of-tour party Pete was throwing at his house that night. FOB was, it seemed, very enthusiastic about this tradition, to the point where all four of them would stop staying up or going out after shows up to a week before the blowout they would plan for the tour’s end. The party was, apparently, just as important to plan as each show on the tour. And when a band went on tour with Fall Out Boy, that band went to Fall Out Boy’s afterparty.

Which is why Brendon heard himself saying “Oh, no, definitely. Yeah, I’ll be there. We’ll be there. For sure. It’s gonna be great.”

The crooked grin he earned in response was worth it, or so he told himself once Pete said “Sweet, well, break a leg and all, but I know you’ll do great as usual” and walked away.

-

Deep bass thundered through Pete’s house and bright multicolored lights that Brendon didn’t even know Pete had installed flashed wildly overhead. Tonight, this house was the place to be, whether you were a member of the crew, a member of one of the bands on tour, a significant other, or a beloved pal (Brendon could have sworn he had seen members of The Academy Is and Hey Monday wandering in at some point earlier in the evening).

It was simply too bad that Brendon wasn’t enjoying himself in the slightest.

He couldn’t help it. He hadn’t at all processed what Ryan had done to him the night before, and he was well aware. Playing their set that night took every ounce of strength he had left in his body. Just being on the same stage as Ryan, trying to connect with him musically while at the same time remain completely disconnected in every other way as well as physically as far away as possible, had left him completely drained. He knew Spencer and Jon had both sensed that something was off as well, not to mention the fact that certain Panic fans seemed to notice _every single minute detail_ and would then tweet or blog or whatever about it so that all of their other fans would notice, too. He didn’t even want to think about the twitter tags that would be created as result.

Though he didn’t want to admit it even to himself, Brendon knew deep down that the odds of him being able to keep secret what Ryan had done were slim, considering the fact that they were literally always around one another and being around Ryan Ross now made Brendon want to peel the skin off of his own face. The problem was, he had no idea what to do. In his mind, Panic was SpencerJonRyanBrendon. In his mind, Panic could not exist as SpencerJonBrendon(butnotRyan).

And Brendon loved it that way, or at least, he had up until exactly twenty-four hours prior. Ryan had this way with lyrics that was almost haunting, surreal. He wove words into melodies like fine needlepoint, and even though Brendon admittedly still enjoyed playing songs written more in the Fever vein, Pretty. Odd. was an incredible album. And that was due largely in part to Ryan’s songwriting.

It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t _fair_ , it was so unfair that Brendon’s heart physically ached when he thought about how unfair it was that he was in this position, that Ryan, someone he _loved_ , someone he _trusted_ , so much, had put him in such an awful position. It wasn’t fair that in the past twenty-four hours every time he had been on the verge of a full-blown panic attack and summoned the mental clarity to list all of the people who made him feel happy and safe in order to calm down, he couldn’t put Ryan on that list anymore. It wasn’t fair that if he told Jon and Spencer what had happened he knew they would insist on kicking Ryan out of the band because it would be the right thing to do, even if it meant the music would suffer or worse, Panic would cease to exist. It wasn’t fair that after so many years of carefully building up walls and pretending he was fine so that someday he might even believe it himself, present-day-Brendon was right back in fifteen-year-old-Brendon’s shoes: feeling scared, isolated, dirty, and worthless.

“Bren!” Brendon had almost forgotten where he was until Pete danced up to him, grinning like a madman. He loosened his tense grip on the beer Pete had handed him, which he had barely taken a sip of after half an hour, and forced a smile.

“Hey,” Pete shouted, still grinning and swaying back and forth in time to the music. “Hey, you’re having a good time, right?”

“Yeah, totally,” Brendon lied. “Great party, man!”

“Right? Great turnout, too. It’s been so long since – Oh, shit. Hey, Cass!” Pete interrupted himself to start waving his arms wildly toward (Brendon assumed) the lead singer of Hey Monday, who was presumably disappearing into one of the rooms behind them. “Cassadee! Shit. Hang on Bren, I’ll be back in a few. Cass hasn’t even said hi yet, silly girl!”

Brendon mumbled his assent as Pete waded through dancing bodies to find his protégé. With a short sigh, Brendon set the beer in his hand down on one of the nearby side tables and glanced around uncomfortably. He wasn’t sure where Jon and Spencer had gotten off to, nor the other members of FOB, since the only thing he had been doing for the entire party was dividing his attention between Ryan and Pete’s whereabouts. He’d lost track of Ryan at least ten minutes ago, however, which was making him even more uneasy.

After several minutes passed and Pete had not returned to his side, Brendon decided he needed a break from the crowd if he was going to survive the rest of the party. Skirting along the edge of the room, he slipped up the stairs. The second floor hallway was dark and unoccupied, for which Brendon was thankful. He cracked open the door to the guest room, peeking inside to check that it was empty as well before entering.

He just needed a minute, he told himself, pacing the floor. Just a minute. Then he would go back downstairs, yes, that’s what he would do, as soon as his heart stopped beating so erratically and his palms stopped sweating so much and he could draw in one full breath so that his brain didn’t feel so starved of oxygen, yes, then he would go back down to the party. Yes.

He reached the far wall of the bedroom for the eighth time and turned to pace back in the other direction. He locked gazes with a pair of large, dark orbs and his heart nearly stopped.

A crazed, drunken grin spread across Ryan Ross’s face as he shut the bedroom door behind him.

“You’ve been avoiding me, Brendon.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is finally done! just a warning, this one is really, really long. like longer than two or three of the previous chapters combined. I kept trying to find a place in the middle to cut it, but when I did I felt like I was ruining the flow so I ended up just keeping it all as one. I think I'm gonna have two more chapters after this one, so probably finish the story within the next week or two.
> 
> also, this chapter includes more of Ryan doing some iffy things and I tried to keep it as non-graphic as I could, but it's still very suggestive so... TW and all that.

Brendon couldn’t breathe. He felt the bedroom walls closing in as Ryan stepped toward him, reached out with one hand to touch Brendon’s cheek. Brendon flinched away.

“Ryan, don’t. Just, please, don’t.”

Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “Aw, don’t be like that, Bren.” He made a grab for Brendon’s arm but Brendon quickly backed away, shaking his head.

“Don’t do this, Ryan, please.” He hated himself for the pleading tone in his words, hated himself for not being able to just shove the other man aside and walk out. He shouldn’t have isolated himself from the party, he shouldn’t have gone off alone and made himself such an easy target. God, he was so stupid. “Don’t put me in this position Ryan, please, just… just think about this for a minute, please.”

“Shhh, shh.” Ryan smiled. “Come on, Brendon, don’t be silly.” His words slurred ever so slightly. His hands gripped Brendon’s shoulders and Brendon shuddered, willing the tears behind his eyes not to spill over. “This is how it’s supposed to be,” Ryan whispered in his ear, before his lips moved lower and began to suck at Brendon’s neck.

Brendon’s heart pounded. His eyes stared over Ryan’s shoulder at the closed door, willing someone, anyone, he didn’t care who, to fling it open. “I don’t want this, Ryan,” he whimpered. “This isn’t right.”

Ryan ignored him and slid his hands down the sides of Brendon’s torso, squeezing his hips. “Suck me,” he hissed softly, sliding his hands underneath Brendon’s shirt.

Brendon cringed. “W-What?”

“You’d look so pretty with my dick in your mouth.” Ryan reached up and grabbed a fistful of Brendon’s hair, shoving the shocked man to his knees. Brendon whimpered and struggled to wrestle out of Ryan’s grip even as pain shot through his scalp. Ryan muttered a curse under his breath and kicked Brendon in the stomach.

Brendon groaned, arms wrapping around his throbbing torso. With his free hand, Ryan fumbled to unbutton his jeans. Brendon, though wheezing from the blow, clenched his jaw tightly. He squeezed his eyes shut as Ryan pushed Brendon’s face toward his crotch.

“Open your mouth,” Ryan growled. Brendon trembled, but refused.

“ _Now_ , Brendon!” Brendon grunted as Ryan’s fingers pinched his nose, cutting off his breathing. The hand gripping Brendon’s hair released him just long enough to reposition itself around his mouth. Ryan gripped him tightly, fingers and thumb pressing into opposite cheeks as he tried to force Brendon’s teeth apart.

Unable to hold out any longer without breath, Brendon released a small whimper and let his jaw relax. Ryan immediately shoved his entire length into Brendon’s mouth. All ten of his fingers twined through Brendon’s dark locks, holding his head in place. Brendon gagged, struggling to breathe as Ryan forcibly deep-throated him. He couldn’t hold back the tears that leaked from the corners of his eyes. It hadn’t occurred to him that Ryan could possibly find something else to take from Brendon that hadn’t already been stolen.

Ryan moaned from above him and Brendon felt his stomach churn. Shame burned his insides and he couldn’t push away the thought that as long as he crouched here, still and shaking, and just let this happen, he deserved it.

So he bit down.

“ _Fuck!_ ” Ryan jerked out of Brendon’s mouth immediately and Brendon coughed, gasping for breath. He scrambled backward and managed to pull himself to his feet just before Ryan grabbed him by the front of his shirt and threw him back to the floor. Ryan raised his hand and slapped Brendon so hard across the face that Brendon’s ears started ringing. Reeling from the force of the blow, he stopped struggling long enough for Ryan to straddle his body, pinning him against the floor.

“You… little… _shit,_ ” Ryan panted, fingers fumbling with the buttons of Brendon’s dress shirt. Quickly growing frustrated with his own lack of dexterity, he grasped each side of the top and pulled. The buttons popped off one by one. Brendon winced. He stared up into Ryan’s wild eyes, which practically glowed with the dangerous mixture of adrenaline and narcotics. Ryan’s fingernails scraped down Brendon’s bare torso, purposefully digging in to elicit more cries of pain.

“Ryan, stop,” Brendon begged, only for Ryan to force him onto his stomach. He sobbed at the feeling of Ryan’s entire weight bearing down on him, crushing him against the rough carpet floor.

“You like it rough?” Ryan hissed in his ear. “I’ll give it to you rough, Brendon.”

He felt Ryan’s hand slide beneath him, felt his pants being unbuttoned and his zipper undone, felt Ryan’s hands, touching him…

And he screamed. For the first time, he screamed.

He was cut off by Ryan’s hand wrapping around his throat. “Shut up!” Ryan snapped. “You fucker!”

Brendon’s fingers tugged against Ryan’s, his mouth opening and closing as he struggled to suck air past the crushing grip. He saw black spots dancing in his vision and he slammed his palm against the floor, desperately trying to communicate his silent plea to be released. Oh, god, Ryan was going to kill him.

He felt his limbs going limp and he had all but blacked out when the pressure was suddenly relieved and air rushed back into his windpipe. He gasped, trying to still his sobs long enough to make his lungs feel like they were no longer going to explode. Rolling onto his side, he curled into a self-protective ball. That was when he saw Pete.

The older man was standing with his back to Brendon, his stance wide to shield as much of Brendon from Ryan’s view as possible. His right hand was clenched in a tight fist and Brendon could practically feel the rage that lifted from his skin like steam from a freshly-rained-on road.

“Well, well, look who has come to save the day,” Ryan slurred from the wall Pete had thrown him against. Blood was streaming from his nose and bottom lip, but that didn’t stop the crazed grin returning to his face as he rolled to his feet.

“What. The _fuck_. Do you think you’re doing, Ross?” Pete growled back. “You know, I always knew you were a little wrong in the head, but you’re more than that. You’re a fucking psychopath, aren’t you?”

Ryan stared calmly into Pete’s enraged scowl. “No need to overreact, Pete.”

It took Pete mere seconds to dart forward and grab Ryan by the front of his shirt, slamming him back into the wall. “I should _fucking kill_ you,” he snarled, his face inches away from Ryan’s. They remained frozen this way for several seconds, the silence and tension in the room building until Brendon could swear he felt it pressing down on his chest, suffocating him. Then Pete released the fabric from his shaking hands and stepped back, eyes still locked with Ryan’s.

“Get. _Out._ You’re done, Ross. You’re done here. You’re done at FBR, you’re done with Panic, you’re done. Get the fuck out of my house.”

Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “You can’t do that.”

Pete barked out a mirthless laugh. “Oh yeah? Well here’s some news for you, Ross: you’re not fucking irreplaceable. You’re not the only dude with guitar skills who can write pretty songs and play them on a stage. There are a lot of other people out there who would love to be in your shoes right now and you had better believe that they wouldn’t fuck it up by being a _piece of trash_ like you.”

Brendon heard Ryan’s heavy, angry breathing, felt the fury in his gaze as his eyes flicked from Pete’s face to Brendon’s hunched form. Pete shifted positions, blocking the stare, both of his hands once more balled into fists. “Get _out_ of my fucking house, Ross! Before I call the fucking cops!”

“You’re gonna regret this,” Ryan threatened quietly. An enraged, guttural sound rose from Pete’s throat and he stepped forward, but Ryan didn’t contest him any longer and backed out of the room.

A couple of beats passed, and Brendon thought, _Thank god, it’s over._

Until...

“What the hell is going on?”

_Spencer._

“Spence,” Pete said softly, moving toward the doorway. “It’s okay. Everything’s going to be fine.” There was still a slight tremor in his voice, giving away the anger so carefully masked behind his words.

“What do you mean, _going to be_ fine?” Spencer hissed back. “What did Ryan do, Pete? What the fuck just happened up here? Ryan just stormed out–”

“Spencer.” Pete placed a hand on each of Spencer’s shoulders, looking him in the eyes. “I need you to trust me, okay? I need you to calm down. For Brendon.”

Spencer’s eyes shifted to look past Pete into the bedroom. Brendon had pushed himself back against the far wall and had his legs folded into his chest, face pressed into his kneecaps. He was shaking, and Spencer could hear his muffled whimpers from where he stood.

Spencer swallowed past the growing lump in his throat and met Pete’s gaze once more. “Y-Yeah,” he murmured. “What should I do?”

“Just go get me a bottle of water from the mini fridge in my room and then go back downstairs. Act like everything is normal and if anyone asks just tell them Ryan was acting stupid – that he got a little too drunk, picked a dumb fight with me, and stormed out when things got heated. And don’t let anyone else come upstairs. Okay?”

Spencer nodded and disappeared down the hall. Pete stepped into the bathroom adjoining the guest bedroom and pulled a rag from the cabinet. He turned on the faucet and ran water over the cloth until it was soaked through, wringing it out carefully into the sink. Spencer reappeared in the doorway with a bottle of water in his hands. His eyes overflowed with concern as he handed it over to Pete.

“Be careful, Pete,” he whispered to the other man, gazing down at Brendon, who would have seemed oblivious to their presence if not for the extra tremors jerking through his body every time one of them spoke. “Just… be careful with him. Call me if…”

“It’ll be okay, Spencer. I’ll come get you in a little while. I promise.”

Pete shut the door behind Spencer and sighed. His shoulders slumped as he did his best to release every bit of tension in his body with one long exhale. He turned back toward Brendon and took a few careful steps toward the other man.

“Brendon,” he said softly, crouching a couple of feet away from where Brendon sat.

Brendon flinched at the sound of Pete’s voice, gentle as it was. “I-I’m sorry,” he whimpered, face still buried in his knees. “I ruined your party, I-I know how important it was, I shouldn’t have come up alone, I shouldn’t have…” He trailed off, a hoarse sob adding itself to the end of the sentence.

“Brendon. You have absolutely _nothing_ to be sorry about.” Pete bit his lip, trying to keep his emotions from overtaking his speech. “This is not your fault. Okay? None of this is your fault, absolutely none of it. And _please,_ don’t worry about the party, okay? It’s okay. I don’t care about the party. I care whether you’re okay.”

Brendon shuddered. “No, I’m sorry, I’m… I’m sorry, you don’t have to… you don’t have to look after me, or anything…” His fingers clenched around his calves, digging into his skin. “Oh god, I’m disgusting...”

Pete’s jaw clenched. He was having a harder time keeping his anger at bay than he had thought he would. “Did he tell you that?” he whispered.

Brendon slowly shook his head. “I just… am.”

Pete sighed. “Brendon. Hey. That’s not true.” His words fell flat to his own ears, so he moved to a sitting position, a couple inches nearer to Brendon, and tried again. “Being hurt, being taken advantage of, that doesn’t change who you are or what you’re worth as a person. Nothing anyone else does to you can make you ‘disgusting’. Not Ryan, and not Matt. Okay?”

Brendon winced at the use of each of his abusers’ names, but he looked up at Pete for the first time since Spencer left. Pete felt his heart breaking at the desolate, helpless look in Brendon’s deep brown eyes. His face was streaked with tears, and… blood. Pete’s stomach clenched. He scanned Brendon’s face until he located its sources: the cut above Brendon’s eye, the split in his lower lip, the thin trickle from his right nostril.

Pete licked his own dry lips and held up the damp washcloth. “May I?” he asked quietly. Brendon glanced at the cloth, chewing at the inside of his cheek, and gave a small nod before averting his gaze.

Pete scooted closer and raised the cloth to Brendon’s face. Brendon flinched and steeled himself, still trembling, as the cool rag touched his flushed skin. Pete did his best not to react, even though his stomach was tying itself in knots. “It’s okay,” he murmured, as he carefully held the cloth against each of Brendon’s wounds, wiping away the tears and blood that streaked his face.

Brendon sniffled and stared down at his hands, fingers twisting together nervously. “I’m… I’m not scared of _you,_ ” he mumbled.

“I know. I know. I’m sorry. I just want you to know that I’m not going to hurt you. I would never, ever hurt you, Bren. I just want you to feel safe.”

He felt Brendon relax a little against the cloth. “Yeah,” he whispered. “I just…”

“I know.” Pete put the cloth down, gaze shifting to the ring of bruises beginning to form around Brendon’s neck. “Is your throat okay?”

Brendon nodded, still looking down at the floor. Pete reached for the bottle of water and twisted off the new cap, holding it out to Brendon. Watching the other man take careful sips, Pete sat back, twisting the cloth in his hands as he considered what he was about to say next.

“When I was twelve, the neighbor who used to watch me after school while my parents were still at work had to start working a night shift. My mom’s friend recommended this guy who would watch her son sometimes on weekends. He came over, my parents liked him, I liked him, we decided to give it a shot.” Pete paused, looking down at the cloth in his hands, focusing on its dampness. “He seemed pretty cool at first. He was doing this grad school program at one of the local colleges, for design. He was so… creative, so artistic, you know, and I thought that was really neat. He would bring his laptop sometimes when he came over and let me watch him work on designs. He seemed so great. And for a couple of months, he was. Everything was perfect. I started looking up to him, admiring him. And… he knew it.”

Pete paused, taking a deep breath. He could feel Brendon’s gaze and he pushed on, determined not to waver before he finished his story.

“It happened so suddenly. He wanted me to take these… pictures with him. Like a model, he told me. He said it would really, really help him with an assignment, that it would be like I was helping him with his schoolwork, his art. And… I wanted to help him. So I said okay. It started off awkward, uncomfortable, but… innocent, for the most part. And then he was telling me to take off my shirt, and then my pants, and… well. I was afraid to say no to him, afraid to disappoint him. Then when it was over, he told me I couldn’t tell anyone, not even my parents, because they might not ‘understand’ the ‘art’ and he might get in trouble for letting me help him. He said if I wanted to help him with his art, and if I wanted to understand what it means to be an artist, then I had to keep it a secret between us. And I told him I would.” Pete shook his head. “But then… it turned into a nightmare. Every time he came over, he wanted pictures. And then, after a couple of weeks… he wanted more.”

He could hear Brendon’s sharp intake of breath and forced himself to continue before he lost his nerve. “He touched me. He didn’t pretend it was for the art at that point. He started trying to convince me that we had this special bond between us, that this was okay and right because of how we had ‘connected’ and how we ‘felt’ about each other, but that no one else would ever understand so of course I had to keep that a secret, too. I was scared, and confused, and I felt so… dirty, so ashamed of myself. I didn’t even understand why. Then he got bored with just the touching and… he molested me. And I let him. Not that, you know, I could have _stopped_ him, ten years older and twice my size, but…” He shook his head. “I felt… responsible. I felt like it was my fault. Because I didn’t put a stop to the pictures before things got worse.”

From his peripheral vision Pete could see Brendon staring at his face, eyes wide and sad. It made him want to start crying and he had to blink several times to overcome the urge. “Thankfully, it didn’t go on much longer because my mom’s friend had him arrested when her son told her that the guy had been abusing him, too. The pictures, the touching, the… everything. And then my parents asked me if something had happened when he was with me, and… it all just started coming out. My mom just… cried. And I felt so guilty for what had happened, and then we found out that those pictures… he hadn’t just been taking them. He had been distributing them.”

He heard Brendon whimper, and his attention snapped back to the other man, who had begun to cry again. “Brendon.” His voice broke, and he cleared his throat, trying to remain steady. “I’m not telling you this to upset you, or to try to put some weird perspective on what happened to you, or to get you to sympathize with me, or anything like that. Okay? I’m telling you so that you know that… you’re not alone. And that I understand how you feel, and why you feel like you should blame yourself for what happened to you. But you don’t have to feel that way, okay?”

Brendon took a deep breath. “Do _you_ still feel that way?” he whispered.

Pete looked away. “I… Sometimes I have to try really, really hard not to,” he admitted. “And when it first happened… it was really, really hard. There was this huge investigation, the cops were trying to pull all of the pictures from the internet, trying to take them down from websites they had made it onto… it was really, really hard to go through all of that, especially to go through it with my parents, who obviously felt responsible for the whole thing. They just tiptoed around me like I was made of glass, and I didn’t feel like I could talk to them, about any of it. I had no idea what I was feeling. My mom took me to a therapist, and… it sort of helped, a little, I guess. It was really hard for me to talk about what happened, though, and after a couple of months I started trying to convince my parents that I was okay and begging them not to make me keep seeing the therapist. And after a while… they let me quit going. So I stopped talking about it, and I tried to stop thinking about it. It haunted me, though. It was always in the back of my mind. It affected my relationships with everyone. I had nightmares, I was paranoid about being touched, getting close to people. Years passed, and I was still carrying around those feelings of being dirty and broken.”

Brendon swallowed, remembering all those lonely nights spent lying in his bunk, mulling over the exact same feelings. His entire body was so overwhelmed by empathy that he could barely breathe as he waited for Pete to finish his story.

“I battled depression for a long time, from what had happened to me as a kid and also just general feelings of… well, hating myself. By the time I was seventeen, I had gotten so good at hiding what I was feeling that no one really thought to worry about me anymore. I felt like… a ghost. I felt empty, like this weird shell of a person who was never going to be whole again. I started compulsively hiding pills in my backpack, until I had all these bottles of painkillers just stashed in one of the pockets. Then one day I snagged the codeine my mom had been prescribed for a surgery. I was just driving around after school listening to music. I felt so… tired, of everything. I pulled into this parking lot and I just… started taking pills. So many. And I don’t know why, but right as I started feeling like I was fading I picked up the phone. That’s all I remember. They said I called my mom. But I just remember waking up in the hospital, my throat on fire from my stomach being pumped, my parents crying…”

Pete shook his head and closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “Um, they… they got me back in therapy, and on meds, you know. It started to help. I started to… not to forget, but to move on. To feel better, and forgive myself. Not just like that, or anything, it took a long time, but… things got better. The band happened, and everything. Then, two years ago… I got this notification. The guy had been released from prison and I just… I freaked out. Patrick was the only one who knew and he could barely calm me down the day that I found out. I just kept flying into this huge panic, I refused to leave the bus, and then when I was finally able to do that I was stuck to Patrick like glue, scared to death to be alone. I just had this huge fear that he was going to come find me and try to, I dunno, get revenge on me or something, for telling people about… what he did to me. It was the most exhausting six months of my life. I’m sure Joe and Andy thought I was having some psychotic break. I’m not even sure how I stayed sane, now that I think about it. And then, finally, I found out he had gotten arrested again, this time for kidnapping an eight-year-old boy. The kid was found and he was okay, but because of his priors the guy got thirty-five to life. But I still find myself lying awake at night having to remind myself that he isn’t going to come bursting through the door, that I’m not going to run into him on the street. Sometimes I call the prison just to make sure he’s still there.”

Pete was startled out of the somber tale by the feeling of Brendon’s soft hand wrapping around his own. He looked up and met Brendon’s gaze. They sat this way for a moment, eyes wet with unfallen tears.

“Matt was my best friend,” Brendon heard himself say, and then it was all spilling out, every single detail of that night that he had tried so hard to forget, to push into the deepest, darkest corners of his brain in hopes that it would someday leave him for good. He told Pete about how hard high school had been for him already, how he was depressed and anxious and struggling with ADHD, how he had realized he was bisexual, how Matt was the only person out of his small group of friends who seemed to really understand Brendon, understood the way he covered up his insecurities by acting like a total goofball, understood how to make Brendon feel better at moment’s notice even at the worst of times. How he was the first person Brendon trusted enough to tell the truth about his sexuality, how he had seemed so accepting of Brendon in every way. How Brendon had sort of, kind of, developed a crush on him.

He talked about the soccer game, the party, the alcohol, the dancing, the bedroom. Pete listened quietly, attentive gaze never leaving Brendon’s face even when Brendon couldn’t bear to continue meeting the other man’s eyes. Their hands remained clasped, and every so often when Brendon would pause and take a deep breath to steady himself, Pete would give his fingers a gentle, reassuring squeeze.

“He just pretended it never happened. The first couple of days at school he would try to talk to me, try to catch up with me in the hallways, still sit next to me in our classes. I didn’t know what to do. So I just kept avoiding him, didn’t say anything when he would talk to me, pretty much turned and ran every time I saw him coming. I blocked his calls, I told my parents not to let him in when he came to the house looking for me. I just… let everyone believe we had a really big fight and that I couldn’t forgive him. And eventually… he just left me alone.”

“That must have been very lonely,” Pete said softly, speaking for the first time since Brendon had begun to open up.

Brendon took a deep breath and nodded. Talking about Matt was difficult, one of the most difficult things Brendon had ever done. But at the same time, it was a relief to unbottle the nightmares he had kept to himself for so long, to have someone else hear the things he had been through and stay by his side, assuring him that he wasn’t as broken and worthless as he had believed for years.

So he started telling Pete about Ryan.

The weird behavior. The way Ryan had almost seemed to know that Brendon had been through something difficult – “He said he ‘waited’,” Brendon murmured, shaking his head. “Like I was supposed to eventually want to be with him that way, like he had just been hanging around with this expectation…” – and had been biding his time until Brendon was finally ‘over it’. That night on the deserted bus. The drugs.

The rape.

Pete listened with the same rapt attention as before, just barely hiding the fury rising behind his steady gaze as Brendon recalled everything that had happened to him just the night before. He did his best to direct his entire focus toward Brendon, fighting the impulse to jump up, run out of the house, find Ryan and beat him to death. Brendon’s speech was slower now, every few words interrupted by a pause, or hesitation, or embarrassed flush. Pete continued to hold Brendon’s hand in his, trying to communicate that everything was going to be okay.

Brendon told him about waking up in the bed next to Ryan, his never-ending shower, how difficult it had been to perform that night. How he had spent the early portion of Pete’s party frantically keeping an eye on Ryan, before becoming overwhelmed and going upstairs to the guest bedroom. How Ryan had found him. What he had done.

“I should have told someone,” Brendon whispered. “I just… I couldn’t. It was _Ryan_. I trusted him, he… he wasn’t supposed to _do this!_ ” He let go of Pete’s hand and buried his face in his palms. “It’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s not,” he cried, voice muffled. “Why do I k-keep attracting people into my life w-who just want to get close to me and h-hurt me?”

“Oh, Bren.” Pete could hardly hold back the tears, watching Brendon’s body shake with sobs. “Brendon, I know it’s hard to believe, I know, but I promise, not everyone in your life is this way, and there are people you can trust who care about you and would never, never hurt you. Jon, Spencer, me – what Ryan and Matt did, it’s not the norm. I promise. I promise.”

He couldn’t help himself any longer. He eased himself up against the wall next to Brendon and gently put his arm around Brendon’s shoulders. Brendon flinched at the touch, as expected, but allowed himself to be pulled toward Pete’s chest and held in his strong, protective arms.

“It’s okay,” Pete whispered. “It’s gonna be okay.”

They sat like this for several long minutes, as Brendon’s heaving sobs died down and his shaking gradually ceased. “What am I gonna tell Jon and Spencer?” he murmured, breaking the silence.

“The truth,” Pete replied quietly. Brendon looked up at him, startled, and Pete added, “They need to know, Bren. You can trust them. They’ll understand. They’re not going to want him around when they find out what he did.”

Brendon chewed at his lip, though Pete wished he wouldn’t for fear the bleeding would start back up. “What if I messed it all up? What if this ruins everything? What if the band…”

“ _You_ didn’t ruin anything,” Pete reminded him. “Ryan is the one who made mistakes. Now he’s going to have to pay for them. I meant what I said when I was telling him off, you know. You can find someone else to play his parts. You can write songs without him. You can be Panic at the Disco without him. I know it might feel weird at first. But this doesn’t have to mean anything bad for the band.”

Brendon sighed, still unable to shake the feeling of dread in his stomach at the thought of having to explain what had happened to Spencer and Jon.

“Brendon,” Pete said carefully, shaking Brendon from his thoughts. “If you… want to report this, or anything… if you want to go to the cops. I’ll support you.”

Brendon shook his head. “No.”

Pete bit his lip. “You’re absolutely sure?”

“I don’t want to… deal with that. I don’t want to have it turn into this huge thing, have it dragged out, and I don’t… I don’t want to try to send Ryan to jail.” Brendon winced. “I know I’m not supposed to say that, because of what… he did… It’s just, he was…”

“I know. I know.” Pete stroked Brendon’s hair. “I’m sorry. I just had to ask.”

Brendon closed his eyes, allowing himself to be soothed by the feeling of Pete’s fingers combing through his dark locks. He realized how completely exhausted he was, how heavy his limbs felt. He tried to stifle a large yawn and failed. Pete’s lips twitched into a small smile.

“You can sleep here tonight, if you want,” he offered, carefully trying to read the expression on Brendon’s face as the other man reacted to his words. “You can lock the door, if you want, and I’ll be here all night, I’ll make sure no one comes up and nothing else happens. If you want. Up to you.”

Brendon flushed, considering. The thought of going back to his own empty apartment, alone, was unappealing. Also, Ryan knew where he lived, and Ryan was being particularly unpredictable and Brendon wouldn’t put it past him to show up unannounced.

“Thanks,” he murmured, his cheeks still tinged red. “That’s… really nice. I, um. Yes. Yeah, I’ll, erm... I’d like that. Thank you.” He sat up and stretched, trying to cover up how hyper-aware he suddenly was of Pete’s touch.

Pete smiled, seeming to sense how awkward Brendon felt. “You can text me, or call me, or whatever, if you need anything. I’ll be right here.”

Brendon nodded. Pete rose to his feet, lingering for a moment at the door.

“Goodnight,” he said finally. Brendon watched the door close behind him, waiting several long moments before creeping over and pushing the lock in. He sighed and sat down on the bed, listening to the dull hum of the party still raging on below. The sound felt oddly comforting now that he was no longer in the midst of it all. He laid back into the soft mattress, feeling safe for the first time in a very long while.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello again! this chapter is also pretty long, though maybe not quite as long as the last one. I'm getting excited for the end of this fic because I just had an idea for a new one!
> 
> also I wanted to say if there are any Ryden shippers reading this fic, I'm sorry for making Ryan seem like a deranged evil psychopath. hopefully the next (and probably last but we'll see how long-winded I get writing it, haha) chapter will make up for it?
> 
> thanks for reading as always xoxo

The next morning when Brendon first eased open the door to the guest room a neatly-folded plain black t-shirt and pair of grey sweatpants were waiting for him just outside. A small smile tugged at his lips. The house was still quiet, so he retrieved the clothes and started the shower running. The events of the previous night rolled through his mind like scenes from a movie. He fought the urge to waste long minutes scrubbing his skin raw, reminding himself it wouldn’t help, wouldn’t erase what had happened. He reminded himself that eventually Pete would be awake, would be waiting for him, and though the thought made him blush, it also made him smile.

He wiped condensation from the mirror and stared at his reflection for a long moment. There was now visible bruising around his neck along with bright red imprints from where Ryan’s fingernails had dug into his skin. Brendon winced and looked away, quickly dressing himself and shaking excess moisture from his hair.

The scent of freshly-brewed coffee wafted from the kitchen and sunlight poured through the window at the foot of the stairs. Brendon heard faint clattering sounds from the living room. He crept around the corner to see Pete dragging a garbage bag in one hand and picking up empty bottles and cups with the other. He glanced up and caught sight of Brendon lingering in the entryway. He smiled. “Good morning.”

Brendon’s own lips curved upward in response. “Hey,” he replied softly. Before the flush of warmth he knew was coming could spread across his face, he cleared his throat and began to move around the edges of the room, picking up cups that Pete had not yet retrieved and stacking them inside of one another. He felt Pete’s eyes following him for a few moments before Pete went back to the task at hand. They cleaned in a leisurely, comfortable silence until the room had been returned to its original state.

It wasn’t until later, when they were sitting at the kitchen island sipping coffee, that Pete asked, “So… are you going to talk to Jon and Spencer today?”

Brendon paused mid-sip, eyes flicking up to meet Pete’s. He lowered the cup to the countertop and gripped it tightly between both hands. “I guess,” he murmured, his words not hiding the fact that he did not at all wish to have that conversation.

Pete sighed, looking away and running his hand through his hair. “Sorry. I shouldn’t push. They’re just worried, and I think maybe it would just be best for them to find out before there’s any more drama with Ryan.”

Brendon stared down into his mug. “Yeah.”

“You don’t have to give them any more details than you feel comfortable with, you know.”

Brendon was silent for several long seconds, then looked back up at Pete. “Maybe… um… you could tell them?”

Pete blinked. “Bren…”

“I just…” Brendon swallowed. “I just can’t, Pete. I can’t. I just can’t, I don’t… I don’t want to keep talking about it. And you know now, so… I just thought that maybe…” He bit his lip. “ But if you don’t want to–”

“I will,” Pete interrupted. “If that’s what you want, of course I will.”

So later that afternoon he left Brendon on the couch watching some musical (it was the best alternative to Brendon tagging along that he could think of, considering Brendon’s love of musicals and lingering fear that upon returning home he would find Ryan waiting for him) and had Spencer and Jon meet him at Jon’s apartment.

A messy-haired Jon greeted Pete at the door before he could even knock. Pete stepped inside to find Spencer waiting on the couch, bent over with his elbows resting on his knees and his hands rubbing together like he was trying to spark a forest fire. He looked up as Pete entered the room. Upon meeting his sleepless gaze Pete heard their conversation from the night before replaying in his mind.

_“Pete, what the hell is going on? Did Ryan hurt him? Is he okay?”_

_“I can’t tell you right now, Spence, but--”_

_“No, fuck no Pete, no fucking way, don’t you give me that bullshit right now. I know something happened, and after what Brendon told us--”_

_“Spencer. Don’t you think Brendon’s had his privacy violated enough?”_

_That had made Spencer pause, his mouth opening and closing several times as he tried to summon a retort. “I need to know, Pete,” he had said finally. “For Brendon, for the band…”_

_“I know. Look, I’ll talk to him tomorrow, okay? He’s sleeping in the guest room right now. I just want him to feel safe and part of that is not talking about something he might not want talked about until I know he’s okay with it.”_

_“Call me tomorrow. Promise.”_

_“I will.”_

“Well?” Spencer demanded, jarring Pete from his thoughts. Pete sighed and sat down in the armchair across from Spencer as Jon perched on the other end of the couch.

“He told me I could tell you,” he began. “He doesn’t want to talk about it himself.”

The tension in the room was palpable and grew stronger with every word that came out of Pete’s mouth. He watched the expressions on Jon and Spencer’s faces morph from disbelief, to nauseous, to anger as he spoke. He told them everything Brendon had said the previous night, starting with the encounter on the tour bus and ending with the confrontation in Pete’s guest room.

“At one point I was looking around the party for him and I couldn’t find him anywhere.” Pete didn’t miss the guilty look Jon and Spencer exchanged. They had been in a world of their own that night, high off adrenaline from finishing their biggest tour yet and flirting with every girl in sight. Pete couldn’t blame them, though. How could they have known what would happen once Ryan and Brendon disappeared together?

As he told them how he had gone up the stairs in search of Brendon and heard that horrible, terrified scream from behind the closed door, Spencer’s hands started shaking so violently that he had to curl his fingers around the edge of the cushion he sat on to still them. Pete eyed the other man, who was just barely suppressing his rage, as he repeated what he had said to Ryan after throwing him off of Brendon’s back. Jon just nodded wordlessly in agreement, staring blankly down at the coffee table in front of him.

“And then I sat with him for a while, and I told him… We talked. He told me everything. He said five or six times that he knew Ryan was on drugs both times, like he was trying to convince himself that it was all just this huge mistake and that Ryan didn’t mean it…” Pete trailed off, not sure he should continue and voice _his_ opinion on the matter, which was that Ryan deserved to be six feet under, drugs be damned.

Spencer raised clenched fists to his face and rubbed his bloodshot eyes. “Is he okay, Pete?”

“Yeah. Yeah, he’s…” Pete sighed, knowing he should be honest with the two other most important people in Brendon’s life. But also careful. “Physically, he’s okay. He had some cuts. I cleaned them up last night. He has some… bruising, around his neck.”

“Mentally, Pete.” Spencer leaned forward. “Mentally, how is he?”

“Not great,” Pete admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. “I mean. You can probably imagine... He’s going to be upset and maybe scared for awhile, he’s going to be embarrassed to talk about it and probably to be around you two at first now that you know. He feels… guilty, ashamed. Somewhere in his brain he knows it wasn’t his fault, but he isn’t entirely convinced. He needs some time.”

“What he needs is professional help,” Spencer retorted.

Pete bit his lip. “He didn’t want to file a police report or go to the hospital. And you know we can’t force him to get counseling or anything like that.”

“Have you even brought it up with him?”

“It’s been _one day_ , Spence.”

Spencer fell silent at that, slumping against the back of the couch.

“Is he still at your place?” Jon asked, speaking for the first time since Pete walked in.

Pete nodded. “He seemed okay when I left him. Stable. Watching a musical.”

“Is he scared to go home?”

Pete hesitated. “I… don’t know. He might just be scared to be alone. Sleeping, you know, being vulnerable with no one he trusts nearby.” He remembered all of those nights he spent curled up in his childhood bed, unable to sleep for the fear that pressed like a weight on his chest. He tried to ignore the flash of anger in Spencer’s eyes, almost hearing him think, _He should trust us more than you._

Jon sighed. “Okay. Well. What I think we should do, for now, is I think if Brendon trusts Pete enough to have told him… what happened… and to tell us about it, and to stay at his house and everything, which I mean kind of makes sense since Pete is the one who, uh, rescued him, and all… anyway. I think you should keep talking to him, keep hanging out with him, watching dumb musicals, whatever he wants to do. Whatever he needs to be… better. And we’ll talk to Zack, and we’ll talk to Brendon about the band and writing music and we don’t have to talk to him about anything he doesn’t want to talk about. And we’ll find a new guitarist even if it’s only someone to fill in when we go on tours.” He glanced at Spencer, who still looked like he wanted to bolt from the room so he could find Ryan and strangle him to death. Pete knew the feeling. “Okay, Spence?”

Spencer gave a single nod, staring up at the ceiling above them.

Jon turned to Pete. “Okay?”

“Yes. Okay.”

-

Just as Pete expected, Brendon gave a warm (and bashful) response to Pete’s offer to let him stay in the guest room for a while. Pete even went with Brendon to his apartment to pack a bag, pretending not to notice when he saw Brendon looking nervously around every corner and jumping at the slightest of sounds. Brendon spent the next two weeks slowly acclimating to his new surroundings, until (to Pete’s relief) he was no longer tiptoeing through the house like he was walking on eggshells. When Pete went to the studio, sometimes Brendon went along and sometimes he sat in the living room watching television or plucking out soft melodies from his acoustic guitar.

At night they would watch movies, either a musical (at Brendon’s insistence) or a thriller of Pete’s choice. Pete was amazed at Brendon’s ability to sit through sometimes up to two hours of plots and songs that Pete, quite frankly, did not usually find very interesting – not that he would have admitted that to Brendon. Whereas most of the time Brendon was bouncing off the walls – or rather as of late, much to Pete’s chagrin, nervously twitching about and becoming startled by anything and everything – as soon as a musical was popped into the DVD player Brendon was entranced.

So Brendon would watch the musical, and Pete would watch him.

He tried not to think about it too much, but during these moments he gave himself cautious permission, though still careful to turn away if Brendon happened to glance over at him. He knew what Brendon had been through – he knew every bit of it now, in fact – and having similar experiences tainting his own past, he could hardly allow himself to entertain thoughts of the other man. Not now, not for years at least, potentially not ever. It had taken Pete years just to be able to stomach talking about his own abuse, and years longer not to be scared to death by the idea of a sexual encounter of any kind.

Also: Brendon trusted him. Pete knew that. He was, in fact, very much comforted by this knowledge. And Pete worried that if he started to show any interest in Brendon beyond their caring friendship, he would lose that trust entirely. Therefore, the only time Pete even allowed himself to think about anything more than a friend was when they were sitting side by side on Pete’s couch, with Brendon’s eyes glued to a movie and his face illuminated by the glowing screen.

(And sometimes late at night, too, if Pete was to be completely honest with himself.)

Pete was an odd sleeper and would often wake up in the early hours of the morning for thirty minutes to an hour for no apparent reason before falling back to sleep. At this point in the night he usually got out of bed to use the restroom and then went to the kitchen for a glass of water. Now that Brendon was staying with him, he now also tended to strain his ears when he crept past the guest bedroom, trying to gage whether Brendon was sleeping.

The first night this happened, all Pete heard was silence, which he took as a good sign. The next night, however, he could just barely make out the sounds of sobbing as he pressed his ear to the door. His stomach clenched and he lingered there for several minutes, just listening to the gut-wrenching sounds of Brendon’s cries. He wanted to knock. He wanted even more to enter the room and pull Brendon to his chest and hold him until he fell asleep.

But he tiptoed away down the stairs instead.

Now, two weeks later at exactly 3:13 A.M., Pete emerged from the master bathroom and stretched, rubbing one eye sleepily. As he exited his bedroom on his way downstairs, he heard a sharp yelp through the wall from the direction of Brendon’s room. Pete’s heart rate doubled in time when the sound was followed by an anguished scream. He raced down the hallway, terrified thoughts of Ryan breaking in to attack Brendon flashing through his mind.

His hand twisted the doorknob, but the door remained shut. He cursed under his breath. _He’s fine, he locked it himself, it’s just a nightmare or something, he’s fine, it’s fine, he’s fine, calm down._ “Brendon?” he called, trying to keep the rising panic from creeping into his voice. He drummed his knuckles against the door. “Brendon, are you okay?”

He could just barely make out heavy breathing and the rustle of sheets. Several long, torturous seconds later, he heard the lock click and the door eased open to reveal Brendon’s face: his terror-stricken, heavy-lidded, streaked-with-tears face. Pete bit back an audible sigh of relief at the apparent confirmation of his nightmare theory.

Something in his expression must have still betrayed his previous fears, however, because Brendon flushed furiously and ducked his head, avoiding Pete’s gaze. “I’m sorry. It was just a dream, it’s fine. I’m sorry I woke you up.”

His tone was purposefully steeled. Pete had to stop himself from wincing at the sound. “I was already up. It’s okay. You don’t have to apologize to me.”

“Yes, I do!” Brendon’s voice cracked. “I do, because it’s not fucking normal to not be able to sleep because I’m having nightmares or can’t stop crying because I can’t stop fucking thinking about everything, and everyone treats me like if they say or do anything wrong I’m going to have a complete meltdown, and it’s _not normal!_ Jon and Spencer can barely even talk to me, Zack doesn’t talk to me, you’re the only one who treats me _halfway_ normal even though I’m camped out in your house like a kid at a never ending sleepover which is _definitely not normal_ and now I’m screaming in the middle of the night making you think something really bad is happening again so you have to come running to help and… and…”

He couldn’t continue for the heavy sobs that wracked his thin frame. Pete couldn’t stop tears from welling up in his own eyes. He pushed the door, still blocking half of Brendon’s body from view, out of the way and carefully wrapped his arms around the other man.

“I don’t care,” he whispered. “I don’t care what normal is, I don’t care how many times you scream and I run down the hall to see why, I don’t care how long you want to stay here. I only care about you. And you don’t have to apologize for not being okay or not being ‘normal’, however you want to define being normal. Not to me, not to anyone.” He slowly rubbed his hand in circles along Brendon’s back. “I promise you’re going to be okay, everything is going to be okay, but that doesn’t mean you have to be okay right this second. It’s fine if you’re not.”

“I want to be,” Brendon choked out. “I hate this.”

“I know. It doesn’t last forever.”

They stood that way for several minutes, Brendon’s heaving sobs turning into intermittent sniffles. Finally, he whispered, “How… how do I sleep?”

Pete’s mind flashed back to all of those long nights he spent as a teenager, tossing and turning and curling into a tight ball until his legs were tangled up in a wad of sheets, just praying for sleep to come. All the times he was jarred awake by a viscous night terror, how he learned to force himself to wake up before a subconscious scream could leave his lips. The image of his mother flinging open his bedroom door had haunted him just as much as the dreams that plagued him and he learned to suffer in silence, hiding his exhaustion on the days where sleep had evaded him the night prior. His parents had probably taken this as a sign he was ‘getting better’, when the ironic truth was, he got much worse.

As much as it hurt him to do so, Pete felt compelled to tell Brendon the truth. “I didn’t. For a long time,” he admitted. “But listen, Bren. I hid everything I was going through from everyone for as long as I could. I pretended I was okay so no one would worry and everyone would treat me normally again. And I got worse.” He felt Brendon cringe. “And I don’t want you to get worse. I… I don’t have an answer, exactly, but… tell me what you need, Bren. Whatever you think will help.”

“I…” Brendon pulled away enough to look up cautiously at Pete. He bit his lip. “I just don’t want to be… alone. I know it’s dumb, like, I constantly need someone around so I don’t lose my shit…”

“It’s not dumb.” Pete remembered, all too well, the feeling of being alone. “It’s not dumb. I understand.” He hesitated, knowing what he was about to ask might have the opposite effect that he desired. “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way. You can say no. It’s all right. But if you want to stay in my room tonight, you can.” He kept his eyes trained on Brendon’s face, watching for a sign of discomfort.

A blush blossomed over Brendon’s cheeks. “It… won’t be weird? For you?”

“No.” _Yes._ “As long as it isn’t uncomfortable for you. And you can trust me. I promise.” At least that part wasn’t a lie.

“I know.” Brendon took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah. I think… I think it would help. If you’re sure.”

So he led Brendon back down the hallway to his own bedroom. Brendon slipped beneath the covers on the undisturbed side of the queen bed. Pete lingered in the doorway. “Do you want me to…” He gestured toward the open door.

Brendon looked away. “If it’s okay.”

“Of course.” Pete closed and locked the door before sliding back into bed, careful to keep at least two inches of space between himself and Brendon. They lied there in silence for several minutes, each listening to the sound of the other breathing.

“Thank you,” Pete heard Brendon whisper, almost too softly to be heard.

Pete rolled onto his left side, eyes studying Brendon’s face, barely visible in the near-complete darkness. _Don’t thank me. I’m being selfish. I want you here. I want you next to me. I want more than you will ever be able to give me. It’s not fair, and I know it, and the fact that you’re lying in bed next to me right now makes me so nervous and happy and sad that I can barely even stand it._

Realizing he hadn’t replied out loud, he opened his mouth to answer but realized that Brendon’s eyes had closed and his breathing had evened out. Pete settled back into his pillow, studying the rare calm expression on Brendon’s face until he, too, fell asleep.

He felt as though he had barely slept at all when he was awakened by an unfamiliar warmth. His eyes opened and then widened when he realized Brendon had moved over during the night and was now nestled against him, sound asleep. He tried to keep his breathing steady, afraid to wake the other man for fear of scaring him at their close physical proximity. The clock on his nightstand was just visible over Brendon’s mussed hair, and read 9:02 A.M. in bright neon green.

Pete had just begun to wonder how long he would be able to remain calm, erm, physically in this position, when Brendon hummed softly in his sleep and rolled over onto his opposite side. Pete waited for a few seconds to make sure Brendon was still sleeping before sliding soundlessly out of bed and tiptoeing out of the room.

-

Brendon woke gently to the sound of birds chirping next to the window. He stretched, blinking as he looked around his unfamiliar surroundings. Oh, right, he had slept in Pete’s room. He blushed, a sleepy smile spreading over his face in response to the warm flutter in his stomach. _Stop it,_ he chastised himself. _Stop thinking like that. You can’t. Pete’s just being nice. He’s just being a good friend. It’s not like that. It’s never going to be like that. You probably couldn’t handle it being like that anyway, since you’re a damaged emotional trainwreck who freaks out at the drop of a hat._

He glanced at the clock next to his face. 9:48 A.M. He sighed and rolled over quietly to see if Pete was awake yet. He was startled to find the right side of the bed empty. He sat up, looking around the room. The door was still closed, but unlocked. Pete must have woken up and left.

_He was too disgusted to be near you for longer than he had to be._

Brendon shook his head, trying to shut his mind up. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and crept into the bathroom, peering at himself in the mirror. His eyes were less swollen and bloodshot, thanks to the six hours of actual uninterrupted sleep he had just gotten. He bent down and splashed cool water into his face. He turned and reached for the towel hanging nearest to him, the warm feeling in his stomach returning when he breathed in the faint, familiar scent of Pete that lingered on the fabric.

 _Stop. Stop it._ He combed his fingers through his hair and stared down his reflection for a few more seconds, willing himself to quit acting like such an idiot.

Pete was in the kitchen, his attention focused on whatever he was doing at the stove and his back to the entryway. Brendon stood there for a few moments before clearing his throat. Pete jumped and glanced over his shoulder, tossing Brendon a sheepish grin that warmed his insides more than they should have. _Stop._

“Hey! Sorry, I, uh, wanted to be done before you woke up.” Pete shifted positions enough for Brendon to see a bowl of thin batter sitting next to a plate stacked with pancakes. His stomach twisted with guilt as he remembered the horrible things his mind had just accused Pete of. Pete looked over at him again, noticing the troubled look on his face. “Hey. You okay?”

Brendon blinked. “Yes. Yeah. Sorry.” He slid onto one of the stools next to the island, twining his fingers together.

Pete scooped a pancake off of the pan in front of him and added it to the stack on the plate. He turned off the burner and reached for the full pot of coffee. He poured one full mug, and then another, adding two spoonfuls of sugar and a dash of creamer to the second. He set the second mug in front of Brendon and Brendon fought with all of his might not to blush furiously. For some reason -- or, okay, maybe he knew the reason -- the fact that Pete knew exactly how he took his coffee made him feel like he was going to explode.

Pete studied Brendon’s expression as he moved his own mug and two empty plates with forks balanced on top to the table. “Hey. You sure you're okay?”

Brendon just nodded. Pete grabbed a bottle of syrup from the cabinet and set the stack of pancakes between them, perching on the stool next to Brendon’s. “I’m sorry if me not being there when you woke up made you… worried.”

“No. It’s fine. Seriously, I’m fine.” He watched as Pete moved several pancakes into each of their plates and then glanced up at the other man’s face. His hair was still messy from being slept on, with several strands covering his right eye. Brendon exhaled, trying to stop his stomach from churning so he could eat and avoid suspicion.

Pete didn’t seem to be buying his act though. He turned to fully face Brendon. “If last night made you uncomfortable, you can tell me. I understand. We can figure out another way to help you sleep.”

Brendon shook his head, gnawing nervously on his bottom lip. His hands had started to shake, and he shoved them out of sight beneath the countertop. Pete’s eyes followed the movement. “It’s… not… that,” Brendon managed to say, forcing each word to come out tremor-free. He stared down into his steaming cup of coffee, shifting uncomfortably beneath Pete’s stare.

“Brendon.” Pete reached out and grasped both of Brendon’s trembling hands in his. “You can tell me anything.”

Brendon slowly turned and met Pete’s concerned gaze. They sat still for a moment, the food in front of them forgotten. Brendon felt the heavy uncertainty pulsating between them, the anxiety building in his chest. They both hardly dared to breathe, and as Brendon stared into Pete’s dark eyes he was struck with a sudden sureness that the glimmer he saw there was not just concern, but something else. Something like… longing.

Longing… for Brendon?

 _Don’t be ridiculous,_ that voice in his head hissed. _Why on earth would he ever want you?_

“Brendon?”

“Pete…”

The words came tumbling out before he could stop them.

“Can I kiss you?”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, so I lied. there's gonna be one more chapter. I'm so long-winded. oh well.

Two more weeks’ passing found Brendon, Jon, and Spencer gathered in the studio for the third time that week. It had been slow going at first, with no one really knowing how to approach the music-writing process in Ryan’s absence and Jon and Spencer still trying to handle Brendon with kid gloves. It was Spencer who suggested they just pick up some instruments, start horsing around, and see what became of it. Three hours later, they had a new song.

Brendon had been apprehensive when Spencer initially suggested he try his hand at writing lyrics, even when Spencer pointed out that Brendon had been squirreling away poems and fragments of songs in pocket-sized notebooks for years. But the words he scribbled down for Mona Lisa came out surprisingly easy, and he felt himself starting to believe for the first time that the band was really, truly, going to be okay.

They were playing around with the synth Jon had lugged in that day when Zack walked in and shut the door behind him. All three of the bandmates immediately sobered at the grim expression on their manager’s face.

“Ryan tried to commit suicide last night. He’s in the hospital.”

Had a deep blanket of shock not fallen over the room, Spencer would have winced at Zack’s blunt choice of words. He glanced at Brendon to gage his reaction. Brendon was frozen in place, staring back at Zack with a blank look in his eyes.

“The reason I’m telling you,” Zack continued, keeping his watchful gaze on Brendon’s pale face, “is because I’m still his medical proxy, so I got the call. And he’s asked if you all will come see him.”

Spencer’s eyes narrowed. “I’m sorry, _all_ of us?” He glared at Zack. “Um, I can think of a pretty good reason that _some_ of us would absolutely not want to do that. In fact, I don’t see why he would expect any of us to, considering! What the fuck is he thinking?”

“Spencer,” Jon murmured. He looked up at the other man from where he perched on a guitar amp. “Easy.”

Spencer’s jaw clenched. “Are you kidding me right now?”

“He’s still Ryan,” Jon replied firmly, glancing between Spencer and Brendon, who still hadn’t shown any sign of reaction. “He’s still our…”

“What, our _friend?_ Because he’s not, Jon. Not after what he did.”

“Spence. It's _Ryan._ He tried to _kill_ himself.”

“Stop.” They all turned toward Brendon, who was still pale as a ghost but was now looking between them with a grim expression on his face. “Jon’s right, Spencer.”

Spencer’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times. “You can’t be serious.”

“Actually, I can,” Brendon bit back, a bit too harshly. Spencer blinked and looked away, his cheeks flushing red. No one dared to interject as Brendon took a deep breath to collect himself. “We’re going to go to the hospital. All of us.”

“Bren… are you sure that’s a good idea?” Spencer asked quietly.

“I’ll be fine,” Brendon growled through gritted teeth. He barely kept the next sentence that formed from flying off his tongue: _Don’t you understand that you’ve got to stop treating me like a scared little kid?_

Zack studied him for a moment, but Brendon glared back staunchly, until the other man nodded. “Okay. Let’s go, then.”

“What, now?” Spencer looked back and forth between them like he still couldn’t believe any of this was happening.

“Yes. Now.” Brendon walked past Zack out the door.

-

Spencer insisted that he and Jon talk to Ryan alone before Brendon entered the room. Though frustrated still by Spencer’s overprotective attitude, Brendon knew it wasn’t worth the fight and just nodded. He stood in the hallway with Zack, peeping discretely through the cracks in the blinds that only partially covered the window of Ryan’s door. Spencer and Jon were blocking what would have been his view of Ryan, but he could see Spencer making dramatic gestures with his arms and could only imagine the kinds of things being said. He sighed, leaning against the wall with his arms folded over his chest to keep his hands from shaking. Now that he was standing here he realized that he was, in fact, actually quite anxious about walking inside.

Zack was watching, unabashed when Brendon caught him staring. “Sure you’re okay with this?”

Brendon shifted weight uneasily. Before he could respond, Spencer opened the door and he and Jon stepped out of the room. Spencer shut the door behind them before turning to Brendon. Brendon could still tell that Spencer had massive reservations about what was about to happen, but he gave a resigned sigh and said, “We’ll be right here. If you don’t like what he has to say, you don’t have to listen. Just walk out the door and we’ll leave. No questions asked. Okay?”

“Yeah,” Brendon mumbled. He squared his shoulders as Spencer stepped aside and held the door open for him. He made sure he heard it click shut before he turned to face the man in the hospital bed.

Ryan looked smaller this way, swallowed up by the light blue sheets, but then again, maybe it was just the paleness of his skin, or the ghastly dark circles beneath his bloodshot eyes, or the blank expression on his face as he stared out of the small window on the wall opposite where Brendon stood. Maybe it was the way both of his wrists were heavily bandaged or how it almost seemed as though if Brendon were to pull out one of the needles digging into Ryan’s arms the boy would simply cease to exist. Maybe it was the dull beeping of the heart monitor, reminding them that Ryan was, in fact, but just barely, alive.

“It’s annoying, isn’t it?” Brendon jumped a little, realizing Ryan had followed his gaze to the cardiograph. He watched as Ryan raised one bandaged arm and tapped a yellow button on the front of the machine. The beeping stopped, though Ryan’s eyes remained trained on the screen. “They said they have to make sure my heart doesn’t suddenly give out.” His chapped lips twisted into a small, wan smile. “They said by some goddamn miracle my liver’s okay, though. For now.” His voice was dry, raspy, as if he hadn’t had a drop of water for days. “They had to pump my stomach, though. That’s a bitch, let me tell you.”

“What did you do to yourself?” Brendon murmured. It was like watching a train roll off its tracks, the way he couldn’t tear his gaze away from the actual trainwreck that Ryan had somehow morphed into.

A wry laugh rose from Ryan’s throat, then stuck there. He coughed several times before reaching for a cup of water from the bedside table. He took several long sips before replying. “That’s a pretty long list.” He set the cup back down. “Drugs. Cocaine. Ecstasy. Heroin, a few times. Narcotics. You all knew, probably. I know you did, at least.”

Brenden squirmed, remembering Ryan’s pupils, stretched wide like a new moon.

“Added alcohol. Went to rehab. Failed rehab. Went to a different rehab. Failed rehab again. Ended up in my apartment washing down codeine with a bottle of scotch. Did this--” He held up his left wrist. “--before I blacked out. Don’t remember much else. I think I had the stereo on. Real loud. Neighbor got tired of banging on the wall and called the cops. ‘Just in time’, they said.”

“Why?” Brendon whispered.

Ryan turned his head, meeting Brendon’s gaze for the first time since he had entered the room. His eyes had lost every glimmer of light they had ever held, now filled with nothing but emptiness and forlorn. Brendon felt his stomach clench with something more than uneasiness.

“Why do you think?” Ryan replied quietly.

Brendon almost let that be it, almost accepted the answer, completely caught up in the loss painted over Ryan’s face. He shook his head, breaking the spell. “No. No, say it. I came here. You wanted me to come here, and I came. So say it out loud.”

Ryan looked away, back to the window. “I… can’t.”

“God dammit!” Brendon turned back toward the door. He saw Spencer peering through the blinds between them and he glared back, yanking the string to pull them all the way shut. He whirled back around to face Ryan. “You _raped_ me, Ryan. You knew I’d been raped before and god dammit, you still put me through it all over again! And now I’m here, because you wanted me to come, so I want to know _why!_ ”

Ryan cringed, finally looking, for the first time since Brendon had walked in, not completely stonelike. He exhaled slowly, fingers curling around the thin beige comforter that covered him up to his waist. “The drugs got bad halfway through the tour,” he said, his words slow, as if he had to pull each one out of his throat with all of the strength he had. “Things got hazy. Like I was dreaming. Sometimes I didn’t even know whether I was or not. I’m not really sure how no one noticed, honestly. When I came down from it… god, I don’t know what day it even was. I just woke up one day in my apartment feeling the worst I’d ever felt and trying to figure out how I’d spent the last three or four weeks.”

He paused. Brendon brushed an angry tear from his left eye and waited.

“Things started… coming back. It took more than just that day to remember it all. I… remembered… what I had done. All of it. I think. I… I hope. I couldn’t even tell if it was real. I hoped it wasn’t. Then no one answered my calls, texts, e-mails. So I knew.”

Brendon squeezed his eyes shut for a moment when Ryan didn’t continue. “Why?” he asked again, through gritted teeth.

Ryan stared down at his lap. “Part of rehab is apologizing. Asking everyone you fucked over while you were fucked up to forgive you for whatever shit you did. And you are absolutely never supposed to blame the drugs for any of it.” He bit his lip. “So I guess,” he continued finally, his voice barely a whisper, “if it wasn’t the drugs, then… I’m just a monster.”

Brendon tried his hardest not to let tears spill over his own eyes, even as they began to roll down Ryan’s cheeks. He realized he was shaking all over now, unable to keep the tremors contained any longer.

“So.” Ryan took a deep breath. “Why I put myself in here. I guess that answers that question, too. All of my shitty choices gave everyone a chance to see the kind of person I really am inside, and now because of that I have nothing left. I destroyed my own life, and I deserved it. So there’s really no reason to stay any longer.”

“Stop.” Brendon rubbed at eyes, willing himself not to break down. “Just stop.”

Ryan looked at him then, finally making eye contact. Brendon felt his heart breaking again in spite of himself, seeing his once-best-friend’s face so absent of all light and hope.

“I’m sorry,” Ryan whispered, voice cracking as a sob rose to his throat. “I’m so, so sorry. I can never fix what I did to you, I can never take it back, I can’t even do anything to make you believe how sorry I am, because you have no reason to. You have to live with what I did now and I have to remember it every single waking moment. And I _do_ remember it, I see myself hurting you every time I close my eyes even to _blink_ , and I can’t…” More harsh sobs wracked his body, cutting him off. He bent forward, covering his face with shaking hands.

“I don’t want you to die!” Brendon was crying now too. He swiped at his face in frustration. “We were friends for years, do you really think, regardless of what you did, that I would _ever_ want you dead?”

“Were,” Ryan mumbled from behind his fingers.

“What?”

“You said were.”

Brendon paused, swallowing past the large lump in his throat. “Ryan. I forgive you.”

Ryan lowered his hands, staring at Brendon in shock. “What?”

“I forgive you. I don’t trust you, I can barely stand to be around you, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget what you did to me, and I don’t know when or if any of that is going to change. But I forgive you. And I don’t want you to die. So you need to forgive yourself. Get some help. Try again.”

Ryan was quiet as he wiped his eyes on the edge of the bedsheet. Brendon swiped the back of his arm across his own damp face.

“You’re so… good,” Ryan said at last. “I was worried that I might have… It’s the best part about you, and I tried to kill it.”

“Ryan, stop. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” Brendon rubbed his eyes wearily. The vague sense of panic he had entered the room with had faded away, replaced by a sickness in his stomach and an ache in his chest. A heavy mixture of anger, grief, and empathy weighed him down so much he felt like he needed to crawl in bed and stay there for days.

“I’m sorry.” Ryan stared down at his wrists. Brendon tried not to imagine how they looked underneath the bandages. “I just need you to know. I’ll never be able to tell you how sorry I am, or how much I wish I could take it back…”

“I know. I know.” He needed to leave, he realized, before Ryan managed to stir up any more feelings that he didn’t feel capable of dealing with at the moment. “I have to go now.”

Ryan nodded. His eyes flicked back to the window. Brendon noticed for the first time that the view was almost entirely obscured by a neighboring brick wall, leaving just a sliver of the outside world in sight. It was poetic in the most horrific sense. Brendon tried not to shudder.

“Get better,” he said, before slipping out of the room.

-

“That was really brave of you,” Pete told him later, when they were curled up on opposite ends of the living room couch.

Brendon blushed and looked down at his lap, shrugging. “Yeah. I don’t know. It was just… Ryan. I don’t know, I can’t explain it. I feel like I shouldn’t have wanted to go see him but as soon as Zack told us, I just… had to.”

“Did you mean it?”

“Mean what?”

“When you told him you forgave him.”

Brendon bit his lip. “I… I guess so. I didn’t even realize until I said it out loud. It just… came out.”

Pete squeezed his hand. “You’re amazing. You know that?”

Tiny butterflies sprang to life in Brendon’s stomach, fighting for precedence over the nausea that had been stirring around inside of him since leaving the hospital. He and Pete had still not had a point-blank discussion about the progression of their relationship since the kiss they had shared over breakfast two weeks prior. They had, however, shared more kisses since then, and all awkwardness about Brendon’s living situation and their new sleeping arrangements evaporated within the first couple of nights that Pete stroked Brendon’s hair until he fell asleep.

That little voice in Brendon’s head was always there, though, waiting for opportunities to insert itself into all of the happiness Pete was trying to restore to his life. _He’s going to leave,_ it would tell him as he emptied the dishwasher. _He’s only pretending to like you this way so you’ll get better faster and leave him alone_ , he’d hear while watching one of Pete’s action movies. _Look at how disgusting you are_ , in the shower. _You don’t deserve him_ , standing in front of the mirror.

He tried to ignore it. He really tried. Sometimes it was just too loud.

Like now. _You’re not ‘amazing’. You’re pathetic. He’s just too nice to tell you._

Pete leaned forward and brushed a stray lock of hair from Brendon’s face. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Brendon whispered back. Pete’s lips met his in a soft, gentle kiss. Brendon’s body hummed in response and he forgot the voice for a moment. Pete deepened the kiss, gingerly sucking at Brendon’s bottom lip. His fingers swept through Brendon’s hair…

_Ryan’s hands in his hair…_

“No!” Within seconds he was off the couch, pulling away with a quick thrust of both his hands against Pete’s chest. He scrambled backward until he hit the wall, clutching the sides of his head. He couldn’t breathe. He sank to the floor. All he could hear was the pounding of his own heart, faster than it should be, _thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud_ , and--

_Matt moaning from above him…_

_Ryan growling into his ear…_

_Hands, all over his body--_

“Brendon! _Brendon!_ ” Pete dropped to his knees at Brendon’s side, wide eyes brimming with tears of concern. He was shouting Brendon’s name but the words barely cut through the fog filling Brendon’s brain, the screams from the past that suddenly didn’t seem so much different from the present, and he wasn’t sure what was happening or where he was or when he was and he was so confused, so scared, so confused…

_Matt’s hands. No. Ryan’s hands._

_Fear. Crying. Pain._

“Brendon, breathe. Brendon, please.” Against his better judgment, Pete reached out and touched Brendon’s shoulder. Brendon whimpered and flinched away. His breaths came in short, strangled gasps. Pete bit his lip to keep from crying. “Brendon, you’re safe, I promise, it’s okay, please breathe, come on now…” He tried again, grabbing Brendon’s hand this time.

“N-No, please… stop, I wanna stop, I wanna… don’t touch me, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, stop, please…” Jumbled words poured out of Brendon’s mouth, words that didn’t make sense, didn’t go together, just like the flashes of memory (it was just a memory, right?) inside his head.

Pete clutched Brendon’s hand, refusing to let go even as the other man cringed away from him. “Brendon, it’s Pete. It’s just me, just me, no one else. You’re safe. You’re safe.”

Brendon’s gaze flicked up to meet Pete’s. His eyes were so distant, like he wasn’t even there. Pete stroked Brendon’s knuckles with his free hand. “Brendon, it’s okay. Come back to me. It’s okay.”

Brendon stared back, the wavering of his chin and bottom lip signaling the internal struggle going on inside of him. Finally his focus sharpened and recognition crept into the edges of his expression. A deep sob shook his body. “P-Pete…”

“I know. I know. It’s okay.” Pete blinked away the tears clouding his sight. “I’m here. Just breathe with me, okay? Everything is okay.” He dared to scoot closer, one hand leaving Brendon’s to rub slow, smooth circles against Brendon’s back.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Brendon shuddered with the effort of breathing alongside the apologies that tumbled from him. _Now you’ve really done it. Now he’s going to leave._

“Shh, Brendon, you don’t have to be sorry. It was a trigger, just a trigger, that’s all. You’re okay. It’s okay.”

“No, no… not okay…”

“It is. You are. I promise.” They were both crying now, Pete unable to stem his own reaction to Brendon’s pain. He shifted closer, his movements still laced with caution, and held Brendon against him. “I’m here, see? And you’re okay.”

“Now you’re gonna leave…” Brendon’s words were quiet and muffled against the fabric of Pete’s t-shirt, but they still stabbed through his chest like a knife.

“What?” he murmured. “Bren, no, no I’m not.”

“Y-You are… I’m disgusting, so p-pathetic, I don’t… I’m damaged…”

“Brendon, stop, oh my god.” Pete planted several soft kisses against Brendon’s scalp. “No you’re not, no you’re not. You’re not any of those things, you’re beautiful, you’re wonderful, you’re talented, you’re strong and brave and so kind. You’re not damaged, you’re not broken, you’re whole. You’re a whole wonderful person and no one can take that away from you.”

Brendon sniffled. His free hand curled around the folds of Pete’s shirt. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Pete kissed his forehead again. “I’ve got you. It’s okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **apologies to anyone who has personal experience with PTSD/flashbacks to trauma if I got any of my descriptions wrong. I have not personally been through these things so I did my best to do the descriptions of them justice.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last chapter!!
> 
> this feels a little stiff to me in places still, I rewrote like half of the chapter to fix some issues with the dialogue but I'm still not sure I captured everything perfectly... it is what it is.

It took exactly two hours, three cups of honey chamomile tea, and one-half of _Alice in Wonderland_ to calm Brendon down. Pete could feel Brendon’s body finally relaxing against his as they sat on the couch, with Brendon curled against Pete’s side and his gazed fixed on the screen as per usual. Pete pressed his lips against Brendon’s temple every so often, glancing down to make sure he was still all right.

He couldn’t stop thinking about what Spencer said when Pete first explained what Brendon had been through, and he was still thinking about it when the credits rolled and he felt Brendon stretch beside him. He laid his head on Pete’s shoulder, peeking up at Pete’s face. Pete smiled down at him, hesitant to jar the calm mood.

“Brendon,” he began carefully, “have you thought about maybe… going to see someone? To talk about what… what you’ve been through?”

He felt Brendon stiffen again. “I don’t _want_ to talk about it, Pete,” he muttered back. He sat up, shifting his weight so that he was no longer leaning against Pete’s side, and crossed his arms over his chest.

Pete sighed. “I know, Bren. But… I don’t want you to have to keep going through what just happened. I honestly think that if you saw a therapist or something it would help so much. I know it’s uncomfortable and scary and it sucks to have to talk about it but it helped me once I let it and I think it will help you too. I just want you to feel better.”

 _Translation: you’re never going to be enough for him unless you fix yourself,_ the voice in his head nagged. _If you can’t even let him kiss you without freaking out then what kind of relationship can you ever expect to have? He’s going to want more. If you keep screaming and running away then he’s going to leave for sure._

“Brendon?” A deep frown had spread over Brendon’s face. His eyes flicked back up to meet Pete’s. Pete chewed at the inside of his mouth. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m not trying to push, or force you. But I promise nothing bad will happen if you just try it out. I can call the person I used to go to, see if she has any openings, or recommendations…”

_You have to. You have to. Pete wants you to. You have to. He’s going to leave. You have to._

“Okay,” Brendon said at last. “I’ll go.”

-

Brendon hadn’t banked on Pete being able to make an appointment so early, but he shouldn’t have been surprised seeing as Pete Wentz could move a mountain through a hurricane if he really wanted to. He could feel his stomach clenching when Pete told him the following afternoon that he was booked for a noon session the next day.

“It was the only opening Doctor Shannon had on such short notice. Is that okay? I’m supposed to be at band practice at 11 so I can’t drive you, unless you want me too, because I can cancel or try to push it back…”

Brendon shook his head. “No. It’s fine. I have my car, I can drive.”

“Are you sure? Because I can--”

“Yeah. It’s fine.” Brendon tried to smile and hide his discomfort. Pete smiled back, not looking entirely convinced, and kissed him on the cheek.

“She’s great. You’ll love her.”

“Okay.”

Later, after Pete had left for a studio session, Brendon called Spencer.

“Hey, I know we’re supposed to do Panic stuff again tomorrow afternoon, but I was wondering if we could push it to Thursday instead? Something… came up.”

“Uh… yeah, I mean, I’ll ask Jon, but probably. What’s going on, are you okay?”

Brendon sighed, doing a poor job of hiding his exasperation. Maybe he should have called Jon instead. “Yes, Spencer. I’m fine. You don’t have to keep asking me that.”

Spencer was quiet for a moment. “Sorry, I wasn’t… I didn’t mean…” He stopped, leaving an uncomfortable silence hanging between them. Brendon counted backward from ten.

“I just want things to feel normal again, okay? And that’s not going to happen if you can’t go one minute without asking me if I’m okay, or making sure no one is saying something stupid or making a dirty joke when I’m around, or acting like I’m made of glass and about to break into a million pieces. I’m still the same person and I really wish you and Jon and Zack would stop worrying over me all of the time.”

“Okay. No, you’re right, I get it. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

Brendon picked at a loose thread in the couch cushion. “I know.”

Spencer hesitated. “So… I’ll see you Thursday.”

“Yep. Thanks, bye.” He tossed the phone down next to him and pulled his knees to his chest. 

_You’d better hope that therapist can fix you before you drive Spencer out of your life, too._

Brendon cursed under his breath and hugged a pillow to his chest, wishing with all of his might that that stupid voice would just shut up.

-

The clock on the wall ticked quietly and Brendon’s leg bounced up and down, up and down, up and down. He gripped the arms of the chair he was sitting in and tried to keep himself from breaking out in a cold sweat. He found the office’s pale blue walls and the obnoxiously serene pictures of landscapes hanging on them unnerving despite the calmness they had obviously been designed to provide.

“Are you nervous, Brendon?”

“Yeah. A little.”

Doctor Shannon, or Karen, as she had introduced herself to Brendon, smiled encouragingly at him. She was a short, stoutly woman with graying hair and small, ovular glasses. The slight wrinkles around her kind eyes reminded Brendon of his grandmother and he tried to seek comfort in this feature. “It’s okay. This can be a bit of a weird experience the first couple of times. Why don’t you just start by telling me a little bit about why you’re here today.”

“Pete wanted me to come,” Brendon mumbled.

“And why did Pete want you to come?”

Brendon shifted weight uncomfortably. “Because. I…” He closed his eyes. “I was raped. When I was fifteen and then… a month ago.” He stared down at the floor and felt tears forming behind his eyelids.

“I’m so sorry to hear that.” She gave him a couple seconds of silence. “Was it someone you knew?”

“My best friend.” His voice sounded alien to his own ears. “My best friend, both times. My high school best friend and then my… my best friend since then. My bandmate.” She was writing down the things he said on a lined yellow notepad. Brendon’s eyes followed the movement of her pen.

“Okay. Let’s change the subject for a few minutes?” He nodded, picking at a bit of dirt beneath his fingernail. He felt like his skin was crawling, what with all of this creeping around the topic of his abuse that they were doing. “So Pete is the one who set up your appointment today and a few minutes ago you told me that you came here because he wanted you to. So you two are friends?”

“Um… well, I’m staying at his house right now. He’s… trying to help me, I guess… And we, um…” He rubbed the back of his neck, feeling his face flush.

“Are you and Pete… involved?” Karen prodded.

Brendon turned a deeper shade of red. “I, uh… we were friends, and I had a crush on him, and then he said I could stay at his house after he found out about… Ryan… And he was being so good to me and I kissed him one day and he kissed back so now we kiss and uh, we sleep in the same bed, but only because I have nightmares, and it doesn’t freak me out and I do trust him but, um, sometimes he touches me and I just have this like… meltdown, or something, and the other day it happened when we were kissing and it was really bad and I scared him and I just… I just need to figure out how to make myself okay. For him.”

The words tumbled out as fast as he could say them and Karen’s pen scribbled furiously across the page in front of her. She looked up when he stopped to take a deep breath. “Make yourself okay for him?” she echoed. “What do you mean?”

“I-I need to be able to give him more than just… kissing every once in awhile, I need to stop having meltdowns when he touches me the wrong way. I… I need to be normal.” Brendon bit his lip. “He says it’s okay, he always says ‘it’s okay’, but it’s not okay, and I know it’s not, and I know he’s going to leave eventually if I can’t stop being so… so obviously _damaged,_ because everything is about sex, it just is. And he’ll tell me it’s not but eventually, it is.”

“Why do you think that, Brendon?”

“Because…” More tears sprang to his eyes and he swiped at them with an impatient flick of his fingers. Karen pulled a tissue from the box on her desk and handed it to him. He paused until his bottom lip stopped wavering enough for him to continue. “I-I don’t know. Because people who care about me keep ending up just wanting… sex. M-Matt… I think I would have lost my mind the first couple of years of high school without him and then,” he gave a dry laugh, “well, then I pretty much lost my mind _because_ of him, and then Ryan got on the drugs and then he wasn’t inhibited anymore from showing what he wanted, so it’s kind of like… who’s next, you know?”

“Do you believe Pete will eventually hurt you like Ryan and Matt did?”

Brendon cringed. “ _No._ No. Never.”

“But you do think that, at the end of the day, all he wants from you is sex.”

“I…” Did he? Somehow, now that the words were being said out loud, Brendon wasn’t quite convinced. The voice was whispering that of course, _of course_ that was what Pete wanted, that was all anyone wanted. He tried to push it away, his doubts growing stronger beneath the therapist’s knowing gaze. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

“Why do you have a hard time believing that Pete really cares about you? It sounds like he’s trying really hard to make you feel safe and help you recover from the trauma you’ve experienced. And you said you trust him.”

“I do. I…” Brendon frowned. “I don’t know… Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I just don’t deserve him and I’m afraid one day he’ll realize that. It’s like there’s this… this stupid voice in my head, all the time, telling me how disgusting I am and how no one’s going to want me, not even Pete.” He had never said that part out loud before. He pressed the tissue to his eyes, trying not to burst into tears again.

“What you’re feeling is perfectly normal,” Karen said, her voice gentle. “You went through some terrible things and of course that’s going to affect the way you perceive yourself and how you expect other people to behave. And I believe _that’s_ why Pete wanted you to seek counseling, not because he wanted you to be able to have sex with him. Anyone who really loves and respects you will not try to take anything from you, sexual or otherwise, without consent. And they definitely won’t expect you to give it to them unless you feel comfortable and willing to do so.”

Brendon nodded, sniffling. “I think I know that, sort of, somewhere in my head. I just don’t always believe it.”

“It’s okay. You’ll get there. And I’ll be more than happy to help you, if that’s what you want.” She glanced at the clock hanging above them on the wall. The hour had almost passed. “Would you like to schedule another appointment?”

Brendon exhaled. “Okay.”

-

Pete wasn’t home when Brendon got back to the house. Brendon lingered in the living room for a moment before wandering back into Pete’s music room. His mind had been swirling the whole drive home and his fingers itched for an activity to keep him occupied. He grabbed an acoustic guitar from its stand.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed by the point where he found himself repeating the same melody over and over and humming along under his breath. He grabbed a sheet of paper and a pen from the stacks Pete kept lying around (“for when inspiration strikes!” he’d say).

_If you don’t let it out, you’re gonna let it eat you away._

He murmured each word as he scribbled it down, feeling the tension leave his body with each scratch of the pen.

_I will come back to life, but only for you._

He pulled his phone out of his pocket to record what he had done so far and realized he’d had it on silent since before his appointment. He frowned when he noticed that not only was it now almost four o’clock, but he had several unread texts from Pete.

At 1:30: _so how was it?_

At 2: _you okay?_

At 2:45: _hope everything’s okay. not trying to be a pest, just wanted to check in. practice might go pretty late, Patrick has a bunch of new ideas. see you when I get home?_

He tapped the ‘reply’ box to text back, but then heard the sound of the front door being unlocked. He set the guitar aside and jumped to his feet, moving quickly down the hallway. Pete was easing his guitar case to the floor in the entryway. He looked up and saw Brendon. “Oh, you're home.” The relief was evident in his voice. Brendon felt a sharp pang of guilt.

“I didn’t see your texts until literally just now, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“That’s okay.” Pete stepped into the living room and Brendon followed, leaning against the doorframe as Pete perched on the back of the couch, facing Brendon. His eyes were questioning. “So… did it go okay?”

“Yeah.” Brendon released a long breath. “Yeah, I guess it did.”

Pete hesitated. “So you liked her? Are you gonna go back?”

“Yeah.”

Pete waited a moment, but Brendon didn’t elaborate. “Okay. Well… good. Um… you hungry? I was gonna whip something up, maybe…” He wandered into the kitchen and Brendon trailed after him. There was still a heavy, elephant-in-the-room type of silence hanging between them. Brendon gripped the edge of the island countertop, watching Pete rummage through the refrigerator shelves. Pete glanced over his shoulder and then turned all the way around, closing the fridge door empty-handed, when he caught sight of Brendon’s troubled expression. “What is it, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Except that wasn’t true, because his heart was pounding and his knuckles were turning the same white color of the granite underneath them.

Pete frowned. “Brendon.”

Brendon chewed on his bottom lip. “The therapist…”

“What about her?”

“I realized…” He turned the words over in his mind, debating his reply. “I was only going to see her for you. Because you wanted me to. And I had this… this fear, that, I dunno, you were pushing me to be more normal because you couldn’t deal with me freaking out all the time anymore, or…” He flushed. “...or that you wouldn’t want to, uh, be with me if I couldn’t… have sex. I-I know that’s irrational, and not true,” he rushed to add, seeing Pete’s mouth open to protest. “I just… I’m… I’m in love with you. I think I have been for a really long time, and I… We’ve been, like, here, together now, a-and everything, and I guess it’s just that I’m… attached, and if anything happened… it’s hard not to be scared of… if…” He trailed off, not sure where he’d been headed with his last run-on sentence.

There was a long pause, and then Pete said, “Do you remember the time we were all out in Baltimore, and you ended up pouring beer all over yourself, and then you ran down the street screaming that you were a diva at the top of your lungs?”

Brendon blinked. “I… what?” It hardly seemed like the time to be bringing up some random embarrassing party story. Especially when Brendon had just confessed his undying affection and was now doing everything in his power to keep his body from breaking into violent tremors. “No, but everyone sure likes to remind me that it happened.”

Pete smiled. “That night… that was when I knew.”

“You… what?”

“As stupid and cliche and totally rom-com as it probably sounds… that night, I knew that I loved you.”

Brendon stared back at Pete in shock. “That was… over a year ago,” he whispered. “You never said anything. Why didn’t you say anything?” _He was trying to deny his feelings because he knew you weren’t actually worth his time._

Pete looked down at his feet. “There were times that… I would look at you when you weren’t paying attention and you’d just have this look on your face, in your eyes… It was the same thing I used to see when I looked in the mirror.”

Brendon’s expression darkened. “So… you knew.”

“I didn’t… know. I knew something had to have happened to put that look there--”

“You knew I was damaged.” He couldn’t stop the hateful words from spilling out of his mouth. “Damaged and dirty and disgusting and used and that I’d never be able to be with someone else.” 

_Ha! Look at that! I was right! Maybe you should actually listen to me once in awhile._

“Brendon, _no!_ Oh god, no, Brendon, hey.” Pete stepped around the island toward him as Brendon turned away, frustrated tears pooling in his eyes. “Brendon, look at me.” Brendon didn’t. “Brendon. Brendon, you just said you knew all of that wasn’t true. Listen, please.” Pete’s voice cracked. “I knew that back when _I_ still had that look in my eyes, if one of my friends had expressed any interest in me that way I would have… I would have completely freaked out. I didn’t know if you were ready, or if you felt the same way about me, I didn’t want to risk pushing you away. I thought, if it was your choice, if you made the first move or something…”

Brendon clenched his teeth. “I never would have,” he muttered. “I was never going to be enough for you.”

“Stop, Bren.” Brendon flinched as Pete touched his shoulder. “Brendon, look at me. Please.” Brendon slowly turned back around. Tears had begun to spill down his cheeks. Pete placed a gentle hand on either side of Brendon’s face, wiping his thumbs around the edges of Brendon’s eyes. “Don’t cry, don’t cry,” Pete murmured, even though he had started to cry as well.

“Would it have all been different?” Brendon heard himself ask through his tears. “If we both knew, everything could have been… so different…”

“It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter now, I’m here. I’m here, we’re both here now. I’m sorry, Brendon, I should have told you, but I’m here now. It’s okay. I love you and I’ll tell you every day if you want me to, I’ll tell you seven times a day if you want me to. We still have so much time and I’ll make it up to you, that whole year, I promise. I love you.”

“I love you,” Brendon repeated, the words catching in his throat with his sobs. They were both a blubbering mess at this point, but that didn’t stop Pete from pressing his lips to Brendon’s, soft and cautious at first until Brendon deepened the kiss, clutching large handfuls of Pete’s shirt and pulling him closer.

“Pete,” Brendon whispered, once they came up for air. “There are still things that I can’t give you right now, a-and I don’t know…”

“Shh, Brendon, no.” Pete shook his head. “I only want as much from you as you can give me. As much as you _want_ to give me. That’s enough for me, okay?” He ran his fingertip lightly over Brendon’s bottom lip. There was nothing but hope and warmth (and tears, but the good kind) in his eyes and Brendon felt happybettersafelovedhome.

“You will always be enough for me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the end!! thanks so much to everyone for reading!!
> 
> I'll probably start posting chapters to a new fix once I fully flesh out the ideas I have for it - and do all of the homework/studying I've gotten behind on while allowing myself to be totally obsessed with writing this fic, lmao. bye 4 now xoxo


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